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HYPOLYMPIA 

OR 

THE GODS IN THE ISLAND 

AN IRONIC FANTASY 



EDMUND GOSSE 



^ 



NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD ^ CO. 

LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN 

I 90 I 






B. C. Pubiic Library 
DEC 14 1937 



t^fi492^- 



JAN ^ i»02 

TO 

MAURICE BARING 



Munkebjergy August 1900 
Londcfij August 1 90 1 



PREFACE 

The scene of this fantasy is an island, 
hitherto inhabited hy Lutherans, in a remote 
but temperate province of Northern Europe. 
The persons are the God's ''of Ancient 
Greece, The time is early in the Twentieth 
Century. 



[^ terrace high above the sea, which is seen 
far below, through vast masses oj 
woodland. Steps lead down towards 
the water, from the centre of the scene. 
To the left, a large, low country- 
house, of unpretentious character, in 
the style of the late eighteenth century. 
Gardens belongi?ig to the same period, 
and now somewhat neglected and over- 
grown, stretch on either side. The 
edge of the terrace is marked by a 
stone balustrade, with a stone seat run- 
ning round it within. At the top of 
steps, ascending, appear Aphrodite 
atid Eros.] 

Aphrodite. 

A moment, Eros. Let us sit here. 
What can this flutter at my girdle be ? 



Hypolympia : or 



I breathe with difficulty. Oh ! Eros, 
can this be death ? 

Eros. 

Death ? Ah ! no ; you have roses in 
your cheeks, mother. Your lips are like 
blood. 

Aphrodite. 

It must be weariness. Ever these new 
sensations, these odd, exciting apprehen- 
sions ! This must be mortality. I never 
breathed the faster as I rose from terrace 
to terrace in Cythera. 

Eros. 

Yet this is like Cythera — a little like 
it. [Looking round.'\ It is not the least 
like it. These round billowy woods, 
that grey strip of sea far below, the long 
smooth land with square yellow fields 
and pointed brown fields, and the wild 



The Gods in the Island 5 

grey sky above. No ; it would be im- 
possible for anything to be less like 
Cythera. 

Aphrodite. 

Yet it is like it. [Gazing roufid.'] How 
strange ... to be where everything is 
not azure and gold and white — white 
land, gold houses and blue sky and sea. 
What are these woods, Eros ? 

Eros. 

Are they beech-woo(^ ? 

Aphrodite. 

I did not think tha ;.uld ever be 

happy again. I am jt .'uippy. But J 
am not miserable. ^ v that my heart 
is quiet again, I am nc miserable. Oh ! 
that sick tossing on che black sea, the 
nausea, the aching, the dulness ; that Ij 
who spw'-g from the aves, could come 



Hypolympia : or 



to hate them so. We will never venture 
on the sea, again ? 

Eros. 

Then must we stay for ever here, since 
this is an island. 

Aphrodite. 

Yes, here for ever. For ever? We 
have no " for ever " now, Eros. 

[Enter, from the house, Cydippe.] 

Aphrodite. 

Is all prepared for us, Cydippe ? 

Cydippe. 

I have done my best. The barbarian 
people are kind and clean. They have 
blue eyes. There is one, with marigold 
curls and a crisp beard, who has brought 
up water and logs of wood. There are 
two maidens, with hair like a wheat-field 
nd rough red fingers. There are 



The Gods in the Island 7 

others ... I know not. All seem civil 
and frightened. But your Majesty will 
be wretched. 

Aphrodite. 

No, Cydippe, I think I shall be happy. 

Eros [zva/king to the parapet^ and Iooki?ig 
down]. 
Our white ship still lies there, mother. 
Shall we start again ? 

Aphrodite. 

On that leaden water, with the little 
cruel breakers like coriander seeds? 
Never. And whither should we go, 
Eros ? We have lost our golden home, 
our only home. We have lost the old 
white world of empire ; any grey corner 
of the world of stillness is good enough 
for us. 1 will eat, and lie down, and 
rest without that long, awful heave of the 
intolerable ocean. Which way, Cydippe? 



Hypolympia ; or 



[Aphrodite and Cydippe enter the 
house. "l 



Eros \alone\ 

This little milk-white flower, with the 
drop of wine in it ... It is like the 
grass that grows on the slopes of Par- 
nassus. It is the only home-like thing 
here. Can that be grey wool that hangs 
in the sky, and droops like a curtain over 
the opposite hills ? How cold the air 
is ! Ah ! it is raining over in the other 
island, and the brown fields grow like the 
yellow fields, melt into a mere white 
mist behind the slate-coloured sea. Here 
is one of the barbarians. 

[Poseidon slowly appears at the top of 
the steps.'] 



Poseidon. 

Ah, you here alone, Eros ? 



The Gods in the Island 9 

Eros [aside\ 

It is Poseidon ! How old and bluff 
he looks ! [To Poseidon.] My mother is 
within. [Smi/mg.] She was angry with 
you, Poseidon, but her anger is fallen. 

Poseidon. 

Adversity brings us all together. It 

was once I who burned with anger 

against her. Why was she angry ? 

Eros. 

The cruelty of your sea ; it shook and 
sickened her. 

Poseidon. 

It once was her sea, too. Now it is 
not even mine. . . . Rebellion every- 
where, everywhere the servant risen 
against the master, everywhere our spells 
and portents broken. I rule the sea still, 
but it is as a man holds in a wild horse 
with a hard rein : it obeys with hatred, 



10 Hypolympia : or 

it would obey not one moment after the 
master's hand was withdrawn. 

Eros. 

How cold it is. But I am not dis- 
consolate. Nor should you be, Poseidon, 
for you will have the sea to occupy your 
thoughts. Hephaestus will help you to 
break it in. He at least should be con- 
soled, for in our fallen estate his magical 
ingenuity will employ his brain. 

Poseidon. 

We have never needed to be ingeni- 
ous. It has been enough for us to 
command, to wield the elements like 
weapons, to say it shall be and to see it 



Eros. 

To see it is not, and yet to make it be, 
perhaps this may be a joy in store for us. 
For Hephaestus, certainly ; for you, if you 



The Gods in the Island 11 

are wise ; but for me, ah ! what will 
there be ? My arrows break against old 
hearts, and now we all are old. 

[Pallas Athene comes rapidly down 
the steps from the house and speah 
while still behind Eros.] 

Pallas. 

I have brought with me the box which 
Epimetheus made for Pandora. 

Eros [turning suddenly]. 

Ah ! Pallas ! What, you have brought 
that ivory box with you ? Why did you 
burden your hands with that ? 

Pallas. 

I snatched it from the burning palace. 
There is something strange at the bottom 
of it — something like an opal, with a 
violet flame in it. 



12 Hypolympia : or 

Eros. 

Alas ! we have no great need of jewels 
here. This shining beech-leaf is the 
treasure you should wear, Pallas. See, a 
little bough of it, bent just above the 
white enamel of your forehead. It will 
be as green as a beryl to-day, and red 
like copper to-morrow, and perhaps you 
will need no third adornment. 

Pallas. 

There is something in the carven box 
which ithe shrieking oracle commended 
to me. " Take this," it said, " take this, 
and it will turn the blackness of exile 
into living light." 

Eros. 

Poor oracle, it became mad before it 
became dumb. 

Pallas. 

I was the only one of us all, Eros, who 



The Gods in the Island 13 

anticipated this change. High up above 
the glaciers of Olympus, where the warm 
crystal shone like ice, and the faint 
cumuli rained jasmine on us, and the 
blue light was like the cold acid of a 
fruit, in the midst of our incomparable 
felicity I pondered on the vicissitude of 
things. 

Eros. 

You only, I remember, ever heeded 
the foolish screaming oracle that moaned 
for mortals. You always had something 
of the mortal temperament, Pallas. It 
jarred upon my mother that you seem to 
shudder even at the voluptuous turmoil 
of the senses. She said you always 
looked old. You look younger now than 
she does, Pallas. 

Pallas. 

I am neither old nor young. I know 
not what I am. But this grey colour and 



14 Hypolympia : or 

those blowing woods are not unpleasing 
to me. I can be myself, even here, on a 
beech-wood peak in the cold sea. 

\Enter up the steps Zeus, leaning 
heavily on Ganymede, and at- 
tended by many other Gods.] 

Eros, Poseidon, and Pallas. 
Hail ! father and king ! 

Zeus. 

I can push on no farther. Why have 
I brought you here ? [Gazing round.] 
Nay, it is you who have brought me 
here. [He moves up the scene.] I have 
a demon in my legs, that swells them, 
breaks them, crushes me down. [To 
Ganymede.] You are careless ; stiffen 
your shoulder, it slopes like a woman's. 
I have lost my thunderbolt, I have lost 
everything. Shall I be bound upon this 
muddy, slippery rock ? What is that 
horror in the sky ? 



The Gods in the Island 15 

Poseidon. 

It is some dark bird of the north ; it 
seeks a prey in the woodlands. 

Zeus. 

I think it is a vulture. My eagle fled 
from me when the rebel whistled to it. 
It perched beside him, and smoothed its 
crest against his elbow. All have left me, 
even my eagle. 

Pallas. 

Father, we have not left you. We are 
about you here. One by one the alleys 
of the beech-wood will open, and one 
after one we shall all gather here, all 
your children, all the Olympians. 

Zeus. 

But where is Olympus ? I hardly 
know you. [^Gazing blankly about him.'] 
Are you my children ? You \to Pallas] 



16 Hypolympia : or 

gaze at me with eyes like those I hated 
most. 



Eros. 

Whose eyes, father and king ? 

Zeus. 

I will not say. Are you sure [to 
Poseidon] that is not a vulture ? I am 
torn, see, here under my beard, by a 
thorn. I can feel pain at last, /, who 
could only inflict it 

Eros 

Pallas has something in a box — 

Zeus \vehementlj\. 

There is nothing in any box, there is 
nothing in any island, there is nothing in 
all the empty casket of this world which 
can give me any happiness. Is it in this 
shanty that we must live ? Lead me on. 



The Gods in the Island 17 

Ganymede, lead me on into it, that I may 
sink down and sleep. Walk slowly and 
walk steadily, wretched boy. 

\_He passes into the house, followed by- 
all the others. 1 



II 



II 



\The terrace as before. Early mornings 
with warm sunshine. Enter Circe, 
very carefully helping Kronos down 
the steps oj the house. Rhea follows^ 
leaning on a staff. Circe places 
Kronos in one throne^ and sees Rhea 
comfortably settled in another. Then 
she sits on the ground between them., 
at Rhea's knees ^ 

Circe. 

There ! We are all comfortable now. 
How did Kronos sleep, Rhea ? 

Rhea. 

He has not complained this morning. 
[Raising her zfoice.] Did you sleep, 
Kronos ? 



22 Hypolympia : or 

Kronos \vaguely\ 

Yes, oh yes ! I always sleep. Why 
should I not sleep ? 

Circe. 

These new arrangements — I was afraid 
they might disturb you. 

Rhea [to Circe]. 

He notices very little. I do not think 
he recollects that there has been any 
change. Already he forgets Olympus. 
\_After a pause.l It is very thoughtful of 
you, Circe, to take so much trouble about 



Circe. 

I have been anxious about you both. All 
the rest of us ought to be able to console 
ourselves, but I am afraid that you will 
find it very difficult to live in the new 
way. 



The Gods in the Island 23 

Rhea. 

Kronos will soon have forgotten that 
there was an old way ; and as for me, 
Circe, I have seen so much and wandered 
in so many places, that one is as another 
to me. 

Kronos. 

Is it Zeus who has driven us forth ? 

Circe. 

■ Oh no ! Zeus has led us hither. It 
was he who was attacked, it was against 
him that the rage of the enemy was 
directed. 

Kronos [fo him s elf \ 

He let me stay where I was. We 
were not driven forth before, Rhea, were 
we ? When I saw that it was hopeless,. 
I did not struggle ; I rose and took you 
by the hand. ... 



24 Hypolympia : or 

Rhea. 

Yes ; and we went half-way down the 
steps of the throne together. ... 

Kronos [z'ery excitedly']. 

And we bowed to Zeus. . , . 

Rhea. 

And he walked forward as if he did 
not see us. . . . 

Kronos. 

And then we came down, and J [all his 
excitement falls Jrom him] I cannot quite 
remember. Did he strike us, Rhea ? 

Rhea. 

Oh ! no, no ! He swept straight on, 
and did not so much as seem to see us, 
and in a moment he was up in the throne, 
-and all the gods, the new and the old, 
were bowing to him with acclamation. 



The Gods in the Island 25 

Circe \looking up at Rhea, with eager 
sympathyl. 
What did you do, you poor dears ? 

Rhea [after a pause"]. 
We did nothing. 

Kronos. 

Zeus let us stay then. Why has he 
driven us out now ? 

Rhea [aside"]. 

He does not understand, Circe. It is 
very sweet of you to be so kind to us, but 
you must go back now to your young 
companions. Who is here ? 

Circe. 

I think we are all here, or nearly all. 
I have not seen Iris, but surely all the rest 
are here. 

Rhea. 

Is Zeus very much disturbed ? On 



26 Hypolympia : or 

the ship I heard ^olus say that it was 
impossible to go near him, he was so 
unreasonably angry. 



Circe. 

Yes, he thought that our miseries were 
all the fault of Poseidon and ^olus. But 
mortality will make a great change in 
Zeus ; I think perhaps a greater change 
than in any of us. He has eaten a very 
substantial breakfast, u^sculapius says 
that as Zeus has hitherto considered the 
quality of his food so much, it is pro- 
bable that in these lower conditions it 
may prove to be quantity which will 
interest him most. He was greatly 
pleased with a curious kind of aromatic 
tube which Hermes invented for him this 
morning. 

Rhea. 

Does Zeus blow down it ? 



The Gods in the Island 27 



Circe. 

No ; he puts fire to one end of it, and 
draws in the vapour. He is delighted. 
How clever Hermes is, is he not, Rhea }■ 
What shall you do here ? 

Rhea. 

I must look after Kronos, of course. 
But he gives me no trouble. And I do 
not need to do much more. I am 
very tired, Circe. I was tired in my im- 
mortality. When Kronos and I were 
young, things were so very different in 
Olympus. 

Circe. 

How were they different r Do tell me 
what happened. I have always longed 
to know, but it was not considered quite 
nice, quite respectful to Zeus, for us to 
ask questions about the Golden Age. 
But now it cannot matter ; can it, Rhea E 



28 Hypolympia : or 

Rhea [^f^er a pause]. 

The fact is that when I look back, I 
cannot see very plainly any longer. Do 
you know, Circe, that after the younger 
Gods invaded Heaven, although Zeus 
was very good-natured to us, and let us 
^o on as deities, something of our god- 
Jiead passed away ? 

Kronos \aloud, to himself \ 

I said to him, " If I am unwelcome, I 
can go." And he answered " Pray don't 
discommode yourself." Just like that ; 
very politely, " Don't discommode your- 
self" And now he drives us away after all. 

Circe [flinging herself over to Kronos' 
knees\ 

Oh ! Kronos, he does not drive you 
away ! It is not he. It is our new 
enemies, not of our own race, that have 
driven us. And we are all here — Pallas, 
Ares, Phcebus — we are all here. You like 



The Gods in the Island 29 

Hermes, do you not, Kronos ? Well^ 
Hermes is here, and he will amuse you. 



Kronos. 

I thought that Zeus had forgiven us. 
But never mind, never mind ! 

Rhea. 

We are tired, Circe. And what does 
the new life matter to us now ? The 
old life had run low, and we had long 
been prepared for mortality by the poverty 
of our immortality. 

[Enter Hermes running.'] 

Hermes [in reply to a gesture of Circe]. 

I cannot stay. I am trying to rouse 
Demeter from her dreadful state of depres- 
sion. She sits in the palace heaving deep 
sighs, and doing absolutely nothing else. 
It will affect her heart, ^sculapius says. 



30 Hypolympia : or 

Circe. 

She has always been so closely wedded 
to the study of agriculture, and now. . . . 



Hermes. 

Precisely. And it has occurred to me 
that the way to rouse her will be to 
send Persephone to her in a little country 
cart I have discovered. I have two 
mouse-coloured ponies already caught and 
harnessed — such little beauties. The 
only thing left to do is to search for 
Persephone. 

Circe. 

I will find her in a moment. [Exi/»] 

Rhea. 

We hear that you have already invented 
a means of amusing Zeus, Hermes ? Is 
he prepared to forget his thunderbolt ? 



The Gods in the Island 31 

Hermes. 

He has mentioned it only twice this 
morning, and I have setHephsestusto work 
to make him another, of yew-tree wood. 
It will be less incommodious, more fitted 
to this place, and in a very short time 
Zeus will forget the original. 

Kronos [^loudly, to himself]. 

Zeus gave me an orb and sceptre to 
console me. I used to play cup and ball 
with them behind his throne. 

Rhea [in a solicitous aside to Hermes]. 

Oh ! it is not true. Kronos' mind 
now wanders so strangely. He thinks 
that it is Zeus who has turned him out 
of Olympus. 

Hermes \in the same tone]. 

Do not distress him, Rhea, by contra- 
diction and explanation. I will find 



32 Hypolympia : or 

modes of amusing him a little every day, 
and, for the rest, let him doze in the 
sunshine. His mind is worn so smooth 
that it fails any longer to catch in ideas 
as they flit against it. They pass off, 
glide away. It is useless, Rhea, to 
torment Kronos. 



Rhea. 

I shall watch him, all day long. For 
I, too, am weary. Do not propose to 
me, with your restless energy, any fresh 
interests. Let me sit, with my cold 
hands folded in my lap, and look at 
Kronos, nodding, nodding. It is very 
kind of Circe, but we are too old for 
love ; and of you, but we are too old for 
amusement. Let us rest, Hermes, rest 
and sleep ; perhaps dream a little, dream 
of the far-away past. 

[Circe and Persephone enter from 
the Ieft.'\ 



The Gods in the Island 33 

Persephone [fo Hermes]. 

My mother requires so much activity 
of mind and body. You must not 
believe that I was neglecting her. But I 
went forth in despair this morning to see 
what I could invent, adapt, discover, as 
a means of rousing her. I am stupid, I 
could think of nothing. I wandered 
through the woods, down the glen, along 
the sea-shore, up the side of the tarn and of 
the marsh, but I could think of nothing. 

Circe. 

And when I foiihd Persephone she 
was lying, flung out among the flowers, 
with bees and butterflies leaping round 
her in the sunshine, and the beech-leaves 
singing their faint song of peace. It was 
beautiful, it was like Enna — with, ah ! 
such a difference. 

Persephone. 

Circe does not tell you that I was so 



34 Hypolympia : or 

foolish as to be in tears. But now it 
seems that you have invented an occupa- 
tion for Ceres r You are so divinely in- 
genious. 

Hermes. 

I hope it may be successful. 

Persephone. 

Tell me what it is. 

Hermes. 

I have found at the back of the palace 
a small rural waggon, and I have caught 
two ponies, with coats like grey velvet, 
and great antelopes' eyes — dear little 
creatures. I have harnessed them, and 
now I want you to sit in this cart, while 
I am dressed like some herdsman of these 
barbarians, and lead the ponies, and we 
will go together to coax Demeter out into 
the fields. 



The Gods in the Island 35 

Persephone. 

Oh ! Hermes, how splendid of you. 
Let us fly to carry out your plan. Circe, 
will you not come with us ? 

Circe. 

Or shall I not rather go to prepare the 
mind of Demeter for an agreeable sur- 
prise ? Shall you be happy by yourselves, 
Kronos and Rhea ? 

Rhea. 

Quite happy, for we desire to sleep. 
[Exit Circe to rights Hermes and 
Persephone to left.'] 



Ill 



Ill 



[j4 ring of turf in a hollow of the slope, 
surrounded by beech-trees^ except on 
one side, where a marsh descends to a 
small tarn. Over the latter is rising 
the harvest moon. Phcebus Apollo 
alone ; he watches the luminary for a 
long time in silence. 1 

Phoebus. 

Selene ! sister ! — since that tawny shell, 

Stained by thy tears and hollowed by thy 

sighs, 
Recalls thee still to mind — dost thou 

regard. 
From some tumultuous covert of this 

woodland, 
Thy whilom sphere and palace ? Nun of 

the skies. 



40 Hypolympia : or 

In coy virginity of pulse, thy hands 
Repelled me when I sought to win thy 

lair, 
Fraternal, with no thoughts but humor- 
ous ones ; 
And in thy chill revulsion, through thy 

skies. 
At my advance thy crystal home would 

fade, 
A ghost, a shadow, a film, a papery 

dream. 
Thou and thy moon were one. What is 

it now, 
Thy phantom paradise of gorgeous pearl, 
With sibilant streams and palmy tier on 

tier 
Of wind-bewhitened foliage ? Still it 

floats, 
As when thy congregated harps and 

viols 
Beat slow harmonious progress, light on 

light. 
Across our stainless canopy of heaven. 



The Gods in the Island 41 

Ah ! but how changed, Selene ! If thy 

form 
Crouches among these harsher herbs, O 

turn 
Thy withering face away, and press thine 

eyes 
To darkness in the strings of dusty 

heather, 
Since that loose globe of orange pallor 

totters, 
Racked with the fires of anarchy, and 

sheds 
The embers of thy glory ; and the 

cradles 
Of thy imperial maidenhood are foul 
With sulphur and the craterous ash of 

hell. 
O gaze not, sister, on the loathsome 

wreck 
Of what was once thy moon. Yet, if 

thou must 
With tear-fed eyes visit thine ancient 

realm, 



42 Hypolympia : or 

Bend down until the fringe of thy faint 

lids 
Hides all save what is in this tarn 

reflected — 
Cold, pallid, swimming in the lustrous 

pool. 
There only worthy of thy clear regard, 
A vision purified in woe. 

[ The reeds in the tarn are stirred, and 
there is audible a faint shriek and 
a ripple of laughter. A shrouded 
figure rises from the ?narsh, and^ 
hastening by Phcebus through 
the darkness, is lost in the woods. 
It is followed closely by Pan, 
who, observing Vhcebus, pauses 
in embarrassment.] 

Phcebus. 

I thought I was alone. 

Pan. 

And so did we, sire. 



The Gods in the Island 43 

Phcebus. 
Am I to congratulate you on your. 

distractions ? 



Pan. 

I have a natural inclination to marshy 
places. 

Phcebus. 

This is a ghastly night, Pan. 

Pan. 

I had not observed it, sire. Yes, doubt- 
less a ghastly night. But I was occupied, 
and I am no naturalist. This glen curi- 
ously reminded me of rushy Ladon. I 
am a great student of reeds, and I was 
agreeably surprised to find some very 
striking specimens here — worthy of 
the Arcadian watercourses, as I am a 
deity. I should say, was a deity. 



44 Hypolympia : or 

Phcebus. 

They will help, perhaps, to reconcile 
you to mortality. You can add them to 
your collection. 

Pan. 

That, sire, is my hope. The stems 
are particularly full and smooth, and the 
heads of the best of them rustle back with 
a profusion of flaxen flowerage, remark- 
ably agreeable to the touch. I broke 
one as your Highness approached. But 
the wind, or some goblin, bore it from 
me. This curious place seems full of 
earth-spirits. 

Phcebus. 

You must study them, too. Pan. That 
will supply you with another object. 

Pan. 

But the marsh water has a property 
unknown to the Olympian springs. I 



The Gods in the Island 45 

suspect it of being poisoned. After 
standing long in it, I found myself 
troubled with aching in the shank, from 
knee to hoof. If this is repeated, my 
studies of reed-life will be made dolor- 
ously difficult. 

Phcebus. 

It must now be part of your pleasure 
to husband your enjoyments. You have 
always rolled in the twinkle of the vine- 
leaves, hot enough and not too hot, with 
grapes — immense musky clusters — ^just 
within your reach. If you think of it 
philosophically 

Pan. 

How, sire ? 

Phcebus. 

Philosophically. . . Well, if you think 
of it sensibly, you will see that there was 
a certain dreariness in this uniformity of 



46 Hypolympia : or 

satisfaction. Rather amusing, surely, to 
find the cluster occasionally spring up out 
of reach, to find the polished waist of 
the reed slip from your hands ? Occa- 
sionally, of course ; just enough to give 
a zest to pursuit. 



Pan. 

Ah ! there was pursuit in Ladon, but 
it was pursuit which always closed easily 
in capture. What I am afraid of is that 
here capture may prove the exception. 
Your Highness . . . but a slight family 
connection and our adversities are making 
me strangely familiar. . . . 

Phcebus. 

Speak on, my good Pan. 

Pan. 

Your Highness was once something of 
a botanist ? 



The Gods in the Island 47 

Phcebus. 

A botanist ? Ah, scarcely ! A little 
arboriculture, the laurel ; a little horti- 
culture, the sun-flower. Those varieties 
seem entirely absent here, and I have no 
thought of replacing them. 

Pan. 

The last thing I should dream of 
suggesting would be a hortus siccus. . . 

Phcebus. 

And I was never a consistent collector. 
There are reeds everywhere, you fortunate 
goat-foot, but even in Olympus I was 
the creature of a fastidious selection. 

Pan. 

The current of the thick and punctual 
blood never left me liable to the distrac- 
tions of choice. 



48 Hypolympia : or 

Phcebus. 

I congratulate you, Pan, upon your 
temperament, and I recommend to you 
a further pursuit of the attainable. 

[Pan makes a profound obeisance 
and disappears in the woodland. 
Phcebus watches him depart, and 
then turns to the moon.] 

Phcebus [alone]. 

His familiarity was not distasteful to 
me. It reminded me of days out hunting, 
when I have come suddenly upon him 
at the edge of the watercourse, and have 
shared his melons and his conversation. 
I anticipate for him some not unagreeable 
experiences. The lower order of divini- 
ties will probably adapt themselves with 
ease to our new conditions. They des- 
paired the most suddenly, with wringing 
of hands as we raced to the sea, with inter- 
minable babblings and low moans and 
screams, as they clustered on the deck of 



The Gods in the Island 49 

that extraordinary vessel. But the science 
of our new life must be to forget or to 
remember. We must live in the past or 
forego the past. For Pan and his likes I 
conceive that it will largely resolve itself 
into a question of temperature — of tem- 
perature and of appetite. That orb is of 
a sinister appearance, but to do it justice 
it looks heated. My sister had a passion 
for coldness ; she would never permit me 
to lend her any of my warmth. I cannot 
say that it is chilly here to-night. I am 
agreeably surprised. 

{The veiled figure fitU across again, and 
Pan once more crosses in close 
pursuit.'] 

Phcebus [as they vanish"]. 

What an amiable vivacity ! Yes ; the 
lower order of divinities will be happy, 
for they will forget. We, on the con- 
trary, have the privilege of remembering. 
It is only the mediocre spirits, that cannot 

D 



50 Hypolympia : or 

quite forget nor clearly remember, which 
will have neither the support of instinct 
nor the solace of a vivid recollection. 

[He seats himself. A noise of laughter 
rises from the marsh, and dies 
away. In the silence a bird 
sings:\ 

Phcebus. 

Not the Daulian nightingale, of course, 
but quite a personable substitute : less 
prolongation of the triumph, less insis- 
tence upon the agony. How curiously 
the note breaks off! Some pleasant 
little northern bird, no doubt. I experi- 
ence a strange and quite unprecedented 
appetite for moderation. The absence of 
the thrill, the shaft, the torrent is not 
disagreeable. The actual Phocian frenzy 
would be disturbing here, out of place, 
out of time. I must congratulate this 
little, doubtless brown, bird on a very 
considerable skill in warbling. But the 



The Gods in the Island 51 

moon — what is happening to it? It is 
not merely climbing higher, but it is 
manifestly clarifying its light. When I 
came, it was copper-coloured, now it is 
honey-coloured, the horn of it is almost 
white like milk. This little bird's in- 
cantation has, without question, produced 
this fortunate effect. This little bird, 
halfway on the road between the nightin- 
gale and the cicada, is doubtless an 
enchanter, and one whose art possesses a 
more than respectable property. My 
sister's attention should be drawn to this 
highly interesting circumstance. Selene ! 
Selene ! 

[He calls and waits. From the upper 
woods Selene slowly descends, 
wrapped in long white gar- 
ments.'] 

Phcebus. 

Sister, behold the throne that once 
was thine. 



52 Hypolympia : or 

Selene. 

And now, a rocking cinder, fouls the 
skies. 



Phcebus. 

A magian sweeps its filthy ash away. 

Selene. 

There is no magic in the bankrupt 
world. 

Phcebus. 

Nay, did'st thou hear this twittering 
peal of song? 

Selene. 

Some noise I heard ; this glen is full of 
sounds. 

Phcebus. 

Fling back thy veil, and staunch thy 
tears, and gaze. 



The Gods in the Island 53 

Selene. 

At thee, my brother, not at my 
darkened orb. 

Phcebus. 

Gaze then at me. What seest thou in 
mine eyes? 

Selene. 

Foul ruddy gleams from what was 
lately pure. 

Phcebus. 

Nay, but thou gazest not. Look up, 
look at me ! 

Selene. 

But on thy sacred eyeballs fume turns 
fire. 

Phcebus. 

Nay, then, turn once and see thy very 
moon. 



54 Hypolympia : or 

Selexe [turning round]. ^ 

Ah ! wonder ! the volcanic glare is 
gone. 

Phcebus. 

The wizard bird has sung the fumes 
away. 

Selene. 

Empty it seems, and vain ; but foul no 
more. 

Phcebus [approaching her, and in a co7iji- 
dential tone], 
I will not disguise from you, Selene, 
my apprehension that the hideous colour 
may return. Your moon is divorced 
from yourself, and can but be desecrated 
and forlorn. But at least it should be a 
matter of interest to you — yes, even of 
gratification, my sister — that this little 
bird, if it be a bird, has an enchanting 



The Gods in the Island 55 

potVer of temporarily relieving it and 
raising it. 

[Selene, manifestly more cheerful, 

ascends to the wood on the left. 

Phgebus, turning again to the 

tnoon,"] 
I have observed that this species of 
mysterious agency has a very salutary 
effect upon the more melancholy of our 
female divinities. They are satisfied if 
they have the felicity of waiting for 
something which they cannot be certain 
of realising, and which they attribute to 
a cause impossible to investigate. [To 
Selene, raising his voice."] Whither do 
you go, my sister ? 

Selene. 

I am searching for this little bird. I 
propose to discuss with it the nature of 
its extraordinary, and I am ready to 
admit its gratifying, control over the 
moon. I think it possible that I may 



56 Hypolympia : or 

concoct with it some scheme for our 
return. You shall, in that case, Phoebus, 
be no longer excluded from my domain. 

Phcebus. , 

Let me urge you to do no such thing. 
The action of this little bird upon your 
unfortunate luminary is sympathetic, but 
surely very obscure. It would be a pity 
to inquire into it so closely as to com- 
prehend it. 

[Selene, without listening to htm^ 
passes up into the woods^ and 
exit,] 

Phoebus [a/one]. 

To comprehend it might even be to 
discover that it does not exist. Whereas 
to come here night after night, in the 
fragrant darkness, to see the unhallowed 
lump of fire creep out of the lake, to 
listen for the first clucks and shakes of the 
sweet little purifying song, and to watch 



The Gods in the Island 57 

the orb growing steadily more hyaline 
and lucent under its sway, how delicious ! 
The absolute harmony and concord of 
nature would be then patent and re- 
current before us. My poor sister ! 
However, it is consoling to reflect that 
she is almost certain not to be able to 
find that bird. 



IV 



IV 



[The same glen, -^sculapius alonei busily 
arranging a great cluster of herbs which 
he has collected. He sits on a large 
stone, with his treasures around him.] 

^SCULAPIUS. 

Yew — an excellent styptic. Tansy, 
rosemary. Spurge and marsh mallow. 
The best pellitory I ever plucked out of 
a wall. The herbs of this glen are 
admirable. They surpass those of the 
gorges of Cyllene. Is this lavender: 
The scent seems more acrid. 

[Enter Pallas and Euterpe.] 

Pallas. 

You look enviablyanimated,^sculapius. 
Your countenance is so fresh beneath 



62 Hypolympia : or 

that long white beard of yours, that the 
barbarians will suppose you to be some 
mad boy, masquerading. 

Euterpe. 

What will you do with these plants ? 

-^SCULAPIUS. 

These are my simples. As we shot 
through the Iberian narrows on our 
frantic voyage hither, my entire store was 
blown out of my hands and away to sea. 
The rarest sorts were flung about on rocks 
where nothing more valetudinarian than 
a baboon could possibly taste them. My 
earliest care on arriving here was to 
search these woods for fresh specimens, 
and my success has been beyond all hope. 
See, this comes from the wet lands on the 
hither side of the tarn 

Euterpe. 

Where Selene is now searching for the 



The Gods in the Island 63 

wizard who draws the smoke away from 
the moon's face at night. 



iEsCULAPIUS. 

This from the beck where it rushes 
down between the stems of mountain- 
ash, this from beneath the vast ancestral 
elm below the palace, this from the sea- 
shore. Marvellous ! And I am eager to 
descend again; I have not explored the 
cliff which breaks the descent of the tor- 
rent, nor the thicket in the gully. There 
must be marchantia under the spray of the 
one, and possibly dittany in the peat of 
the other. 

Pallas. 

We must not detain you, ^sculapius. 
But tell us how you propose to adapt 
yourself to our new life. It seems to me 
that you are determined not to find it 
irksome. 



64 Hypolympia : or 

iEsCULAPIUS. 

Does it not occur to you, Pallas, that 
— although I should never have had the 
courage to adopt it — thus forced upon us 
it offers me the most dazzling anticipa- 
tions ? Hitherto my existence has been 
all theory. What there is to know about 
the principles of health as applied to the 
fluctuations of mortality, I may suppose 
is known to me. You might be troubled, 
Pallas, with every conceivable malady, 
from elephantiasis to earache, and I should 
be in a position to analyse and to deal 
with each in turn. You might be ob- 
scured by ophthalmia, crippled by gout or 
consumed to a spectre by phthisis, and I 
should be able, without haste, without 
anxiety, to unravel the coil, to reduce the 
nodosities, to make the fleshy instrument 
respond in melody to all your needs. 

Pallas. 

But you have never done this. We 



The Gods in the Island 65 

knew that you could do it, and that has- 
been enough for us. 

-^SCULAPIUS. 

It has never been enough for me. The 
impenetrable immortality of all our bodies- 
has been a constant source of exasperation 
to me. 



Pallas. 

Is it not much to know.? 

iEsCULAPIUS. 

Yes ; but it is more to do . The most 
perfect theory carries a monotony and an 
emptiness about with it, if it is never 
renovated by practice. In Olympus the 
unbroken health of all the inmates, which 
we have accepted as a matter of course^ 
has been more advantageous to them than 
it has been to me. 



'66 Hypolympia : or 

Pallas. 

I quite see that it has made your 
position a more academic one than you 
could wish. 

-^SCULAPIUS. 

It has made it purely academic, and 
indeed, Pallas, if you will reflect upon it, 
the very existence of a physician in a 
social system which is eternally protected 
against every species of bodily disturbance 
borders upon the ridiculous. 

Pallas. 

It would interest me to know whether 
in our old home you were conscious of 
this incongruity, of this lack of harmony 
between your science and your occasions 
of using it. 

^SCULAPIUS. 

No; 1 think not. I was satisfied in the 
possession of exact knowledge, and not 



The Gods in the Island 67 

directly aware of the charm of applica- 
tion. It is the result, no doubt, of this 
resignation of immortality which has 
startled and alarmed us all so much 

Pallas. 

Me, -^sculapius, it has neither alarmed 
nor startled. 

^SCULAPIUS. 

I mean that while we were beyond 
the dread of any attack, the pleasure of 
rebutting such attack was unknown to us. 
I have divined, since our misfortunes, 
that disease itself may bring an excite- 
ment with it not all unallied to plea- 
sure. . . . You smile, Euterpe, but I 
mean even for the sufferer. There is 
more in disease than the mere pang and 
languishment. There is the sense of 
alleviation, the cessation of the throb, 
the resuming glitter in the eye, the 
restoration of cheerfulness and appetite. 



68 Hypolympia : or 

These, Pallas, are qualities which are in- 
dissolubly identified with pain and decay, 
and which therefore — if we rightly con- 
sider — were wholly excluded from our 
experience. In Olympus we never 
brightened, for we never flagged ; we 
never waited for a pang to subside, nor 
felt it throbbing less and less poignantly, 
nor, as if we were watching an enemy 
from a distance, hugged ourselves in a 
breathless ecstasy as it faded altogether ; 
this exquisite experience was unknown 
to us, for we never endured the pang. 

Euterpe. 

You make me eager for an illness. 
What shall it be ? Prescribe one for me. 
I am ignorant even of the names of the 
principal maladies. Let it be a not un- 
becoming one. 

-^SCULAPIUS. 

Ah ' no, Euterpe. Your mind still 



The Gods in the Island 69 

runs in the channel of your lost imper- 
meability. Till now, you might fling 
yourself from the crags of Tartarus, or 
float, like a trail of water-plants, on the 
long, blown flood of the altar-flame, and 
yet take no hurt, being imperishable. 
But now, part of your hourly occupation, 
part of your faith, your hope, your duty, 
must be to preserve your body against the 
inroads of decay. 

Euterpe. 

You present us with a tedious concep- 
tion of our new existence, surely. 

^SCULAPIUS. 

Why should it be tedious ? There 
was tedium, rather, in the possession of 
bodies as durable as metal, as renewable 
as wax, as insensitive as water. In the 
fiercest onset of the passions, prolonged 
to satiety, there was always an element 



70 Hypolympia : or 

of the unreal. What is pleasure, if the 
strain of it is followed by no fatigue ; 
what the delicacy of taste, if we can eat 
like caverns and drink like conduits 
without being vexed by the slightest in- 
convenience ? You will discover that 
one of the acutest enjoyments of the 
mortal state will be found to consist in 
guarding against suffering. If you are 
provided with balloons attached to all 
your members, you float upon the sea 
with indifference. It is the certainty 
that you will drown if you do not swim 
which gives zest to the exercise. I climb 
along yonder jutting cornice of the cliff 
with eagerness, and pluck my simples 
with a hand that trembles more from joy 
than fear, precisely because the strain of 
balancing the nerves, and the certainty of 
suffering as the result of carelessness, 
knit my sensations together into an ex- 
altation which is not exactly pleasure, 
perhaps, but which is not to be dis- 



The Gods in the Island 71 

tinguished from it in its exciting 
properties. 

Pallas. 

Is life, then, to resolve itself for us 
into a chain of exhilarating pangs ? 

iEsCULAPIUS. 

Life will now be for you, for all of us,, 
a perpetual combat with a brine that half 
supports, half drags us under ; a continual 
creeping and balancing on a chamois 
path around the forehead of a precipice. 
A headache will be the breaking of a 
twig, a fever a stone that gives waj^ 
beneath your foot, to lose the use of an 
organ will be to let the alpenstock slip- 
out of your starting fingers. And the 
excitement, and be sure the happiness, of 
existence will be to protract the struggle 
as long as possible, to push as far as you 
can along the dwindling path, to keep 
the supports and the alleviations of your 



72 Hypolympia : or 

labour about you as skilfully as you can, 
and in the fuss and business of the little 
momentary episodes of climbing to forget 
as long and as fully as may be the final 
and absolutely unavoidable plunge. [^ 
pause, during which Euterpe sinks upon the 
jgreen sward ^^ 

^SCULAPIUS. 

I have unfolded before you a scheme 
of philosophical activity. Are you not 
gratified ? 

Pallas. 

Euterpe will learn to be gratified, 
^sculapius, but she had not reflected 
upon the plunge. If she will take my 
•counsel, she will continue to avoid doing 
so. [Euterpe rises, and approaches Pallas, 
who continues, to ^sculapius.] I am with 
you in recommending to her a constant 
consideration of the momentary episodes 



The Gods in the Island 73 

of health. And now let us detain you 
no longer from the marchanteas. 

Euterpe. 

But pray recollect that they grow- 
where the rocks are both slippery and 
shelving. 

[Exif ^scuLAPius. Euterpe sinks 
again upon the grass, with her face 
in her hands, and lies there motion- 
less. Pallas walks up and dozun, 
in growing emotion, and at length 
breaks forth in soliloquy.'] 

Pallas. 

.Higher than this dull circle of the 
sense — 

Shrewd though its pulsing sharp re- 
minders be, 

With ceaseless fairy blows that ring and 
wake 

The anvil of the brain — I rather choose 

To lift mine eyes and pierce 



74 Hypolympia : or 

The long transparent bar that floats 

above, 
And hides, or feigns to hide, the choiring 

stars, 
And dulls, or faintly dulls, the fiery sun, 
And lacquers all the glassy sky with 

gold. 
For so the strain that makes this mortal 

life 
Irksome or squalid, chains that bind us 

down. 
Rust on those chains which soils the 

reddening skin, 
Passes ; and in that concentrated calm. 
And in that pure concinnity of soul. 
And in that heart that almost fails to 

beat, 
I read a faint beatitude, and dream 
I walk once more upon the roof of 

Heaven, 
And feel all knowledge, all capacity 
For sovereign thought, all intellectual 

joy* 



The Gods in the Island 75 

Blow on me, like fluttering and like 

dancing winds. 
We are fallen, fallen ! . . . 
And yet a nameless mirth, flooding my 

veins, 
And yet a sense of limpid happiness 
And buoyancy and anxious fond desire 
Quicken my being. It is much to see 
The perfected geography of thought 
Spread out before the gorged intelli- 
gence, 
A map from further detail long absolved. 
But ah ! when we have tasted the delight 
Of toilsome apprehension, how return 
To that satiety of mental ease 
Where all is known because it merely is ? 
Nay, here the joy will be to learn and 

learn. 
To learn in error and correct in pain. 
To learn through effort and with ease 

forget, 
Building of rough and slippery stones a 
House, 



76 Hypolympia 

Long schemed, and falling from us, and 

at the last 
Imperfect. Knowledge not the aim, so 

much 
As pleasure In the toil that leads to 

knowledge, 
We shall build, although the house before 

our eyes 
Crumble, and we shall gladden in the 

toil 
Although it never leads to habitation — 
Building our goal, though never a fabric 

rise. 



V 



[The glen, down zvhich a limpid and murmur- 
ing brook descends, with numerous tiny 
cascades and pools. Beside one of the 
latter, underneath a great beech-tree, 
and sitting on the root of it. Aphrodite, 
alone. Enter from belozv, concealed at 
first by the undergrowth. Ares. // is 
mid-day. 1 

Aphrodite \to herself \ 

Here he comes at last, and from the 
opposite direction. . . . No! that cannot 
be Phoebus . . . Ah ! it is you, then ! 



Ares. 

Is it possible ? Your Majesty — and 
alone ! 



80 Hypolympia : or 

Aphrodite. 

Phoebus offered me the rustic enter- 
tainment of gathering wild raspberries. 
We found some at length, and regaled 
ourselves. I wished for more, and Phoebus, 
with his usual gallantry, wandered dreamily 
away into the forest on the quest. He 
has evidently lost his way. I sat me down 
on this tree and waited. 

Ares. 

Surely it is the first time that you were 
ever abroad unattended. I am amazed 
at the carelessness of Phoebus. Aphrodite 
— without an attendant ! 

Aphrodite. 

That is rather a fatuous remark, and 
from you of all people in the world. My 
most agreeable reminiscences are, without 
exception, connected with occasions on 
which I had escaped from my body-guard 
of nymphs. At the present moment you 



The Gods in the Island 81 

would do well to face the fact, Ares, that 
I have but a single maid, and that she has 
collapsed under the burdens of novelty 
and exile. 

Ares. • 

Is that my poor friend Cydippe ? 

Aphrodite. 

You have so many friends, Ares. Poor 
Cydippe, then, broke down this morning 
in moaning hysterics after having borne 
up just long enough to do my hair. I 
really came out on this rather mad adven- 
ture after the raspberries to escape the 
dolours of her countenance, and the last 
thing I saw was her chlamys flung wildly 
over her head as she dived down upon 
the floor in misery. Such consolations 
as this island has to give me will not pro- 
ceed from what you call my attendant. 
You do not look well. Ares. 

F 



82 Hypolympia : or 

Ares. 

I am always well. I am still incensed. 

Aphrodite. 

Ah, you are oppressed by our misfor- 
tunes ? 

Ares. 

I can think of nothing else. 

Aphrodite. 

You do not, I hope, give way to the 
most foolish of the emotions, and endure 
the silly torture of self-reproach ? 

Ares. 

I have nothing to reproach myself 
with. Our forces had never been in 
smarter trim, public spirit in Olympus 
never more patriotic and national; and as 
to the personal bravery of our forces, it 
was simply a portent of moral splendour. 



The Gods in the Island 83 



Aphrodite. 

And your discipline ? 

Ares. 

It was perfect. I had led the troops 
up to the point of cheerfully marching 
and counter-marching until they were 
ready to drop with exhaustion, on the 
eve of each engagement ; and at the ends 
of all our practising-grounds brick walls 
had been set up, at which every officer 
made it a point of honour to tilt head- 
foremost once a day. There was no refine- 
ment preserved from the good old wars 
of chivalry which was not familiar to our 
gallant fellows, and I had expressly for- 
bidden every species of cerebral exercise. 
Nothing, I have always said, is so hurt- 
ful to the temper of an army as for the 
rank and file to suspect that they are led 
by men of brains. 

Aphrodite. 

There every one must do you justice, 



84 Hypolympia : or 

Ares. I never heard even the voice of 
prejudice raised to accuse you. 



Ares. 

No ; I do not think any one could 
have the effrontery to charge me with en- 
couraging that mental effort which is so 
disastrous to the work of a soldier. The 
same old practices which led our fore- 
fathers to glory — the courage of tigers ; 
the firm belief that if any one tried to be 
crafty it must be because he is a coward ; 
a bull-front set straight at every obstacle, 
whatever its nature; a proper contempt 
for any plan or discovery made since the 
days of Father Uranus — these are the 
principles in which I disciplined our 
troops, and I will not admit that I can 
have anything to reproach myself with. 
The circumstances which we were unex- 
pectedly called upon to face were such as 
could never have been anticipated. 



The Gods in the Island 85 

Aphrodite. 

I do not see that you could have done 
otherwise than, as you did, to refuse with 
dignity to anticipate anything so revolu- 
tionary. 

Ares. 

There are certain things which one 
seems to condone by merely acknowledg- 
ing their existence. That employment 
of mobile mechanisms, for instance 

Aphrodite. 

Do not speak of it ! I could never 
have believed that the semblance of the 
military could be made so excessively 
distasteful to me. 

Ares. 

Can I imagine myself admitting the 
necessity of guarding against such an 
ungentlemanlike form of attack? 



86 Hypolympia : or 

Aphrodite. 

Your friends are all aware, Ares, that if 
the conditions were to return, you would 
never demean yourself and them by 
guarding against anything of the kind. 
But I advise you not to brood upon the 
past. Your figure will suffer. You must 
keep up your character for solid and agile 
exercises. 

Ares. 

It will not be easy for me to occupy 
myself here. I am accustomed, as you 
know, to hunting and slaying. I thought 
I might have enjoyed some sport with the 
barbarian islanders, and I selected one for 
the purpose. But Zeus intervened, with 
that authority which even here, in our shat- 
tered estate, we know not how to resist. 

Aphrodite. 

Did he give any reason for preventing 

the combat ? 



The Gods in the Island 87 

Ares. 

Yes ; and his reasons (I was bound to 
admit) carried some weight with them. 
He said, first, that it was wrong to liill 
those who had received us with so gener- 
ous a hospitality ; and secondly, that, as 
I am no longer immortal, this brawny 
savage, with hair so curiously coiled and 
matted over his brain-pan, might kill me ; 
and thirdly, that the whole aft'air might 
indirectly lead to his, Zeus', personal in- 
convenience. Here then is enjoyment 
by one door quite shut out from me. 

Aphrodite. 

Are there not deer in these woods, 
and perhaps wolves and boars ? There 
must be wild duck on the firth, and 
buzzards in the rocks. Instead of chal- 
lenging the barbarians to a foolish trial of 
strength, why not make them your com- 
panions, and learn their accomplishments ? 



88 Hypolympia : or 

Ares. 

It is possible that I shall do so. But 
for the present, anger gushes like an inter- 
mittent spring of bitter water in my 
bosom. I forget for a moment, and the 
fountain falls ; and then, with a rush, 
memory leaps up in me, a column of 
poison. I say to myself. It cannot be, 
it shall not be ; but I grow calm again and 
find that it is. 

Aphrodite. 

The worst of the old immortality was 
the carelessness of it. We were utterly 
unprepared for anything bordering on 
catastrophe, and behold, without warning, 
we are swept away in a complete cata- 
clysm of our fortunes. I see, Ares, that 
it will be long before you can recover 
serenity, or take advantage of the capa- 
bilities of our new existence. They will 
appeal to you more slowly than to the 
rest of us, and you will respond more 



The Gods in the Island 89 

unwillingly, because of your lack — your 
voluntary and boasted lack — of all in- 
tellectual suppleness. 

Ares. 

It is not the business of a soldier to be 
supple. 

Aphrodite. 

So it appears. And you will suffer for 
it. For, stiff and blank as you may 
determine to be, circumstances will over- 
power you. Under their influences you 
will not be able to avoid becoming softer 
and more redundant. But you will 
resist the process, I see, and you will 
make it as painful as you can. 

Ares. 

You discuss my case with a cheerful 
candour, Aphrodite. Are you sure of 
being happier yourself? 



90 Hypolympia : or 

Aphrodite. 

Not sure; but I have a reasonable con- 
fidence that I shall be fairly contented. 
For I, at least, am supple, and I court 
the influences which you think it a point 
of gallantry to resist. 

Ares. 

You will continue, I suppose, to make 
your main business the stimulating and 
the guiding of the affections ? Here I 
admit that suppleness, as you call it, is in 
place. 

Aphrodite. 

Unfortunately, even here, immortality 
was no convenient prelude to our pre- 
sent state. We did not, indeed, neglect 
the heart 

Ares. 

If I forget all else, there must be 
events 



The Gods in the Island 91 

Aphrodite. 

Alas ! we loved so briefly and with so 
facile a susceptibility, that I am tempted 
to ask myself whether in Olympus we 
really loved at all. 



Ares [w'M ardour]. 

There, at least, memory supplies me 
with no sort of doubt 



Aphrodite [co/d/y]. 

Let us keep to generalities. Looking 
broadly at our experience, I should say 
that the misfortune of the gods, as a 
preparation for their mortality, was that 
in their deathless state the affections fell 
at the foot of the tree, like these withered 
leaves. We should have fastened the 
branches of life together in long elastic 
wires of the thin-drawn gold of perdur- 
able sentiment. 



92 Hypolympia : or 

Ares. 

The rapture, the violence, the hammer- 
ing pulse, the bursting heart, — I see no 
resemblance between these and the 
leaves that flutter at our feet. 

Aphrodite. 

These leaves had their moment of 
vitality, when the sap rushed through 
their veins, when their tissue was like a 
ripple of sparkling emerald on the face of 
the smiling sky. But they could not 
preserve their glow, and they are the 
more hopelessly dead now, because they 
burned in their green fire so fiercely. 

Ares. 

We felt no shadow of coming disability 
strike across our pleasures. 

Aphrodite. 

No ; but that was precisely what made 
our immortality such an ill preparation 



The Gods in the Island 93 

for a brief existence on this island. In 
Olympus the sentiment of yesterday was 
forgotten, and we realised the passion 
of to-day as little as the caprice of 
to-morrow. Perhaps this fragmentary 
tenderness was the real chastisement of 
our implacable prosperity. 

Ares [/« a very low voice]. 

Can we not resume in this our exile, 
and with more prospect of continuity, 
the emotions which were so agreeable 
in our former state? So agreeable — 
although, as you justly say, too ephemeral 
[coming a little closer]. Can you not 
teach us to moderate and to prolong the 
rapture ? 

Aphrodite [rising to her feet]. 

It may be. We shall see. Ares. But 
one thing I have already perceived. In 
this mortal sphere, the heart needs soli- 
tude, it needs silence. It must have its 



94 Hypolympia 

questionings and its despairs. The tri- 
umphant supremacy of the old emotions 
cannot be repeated here. For we have a 
new enemy to contend with. Even if 
love should prosecute its conquests here 
in all the serenity of success, it will not 
be able to escape from an infliction worse 
than any which we dreamed of when we 
were immortals. 

Ares. 

And what is that, Aphrodite? 

Aphrodite. 

The blight of indifference. 



VI 



VI 



[Aphrodite and Circe are seated on the 
grass in a little dell surrounded by 
heechwoods. Far azvay a bell is beard. ] 

Circe. 

What is that curious distant sound ? 
Is it a bird ? 

Aphrodite. 

Cydippe tells me that there is a temple 
on the hill beyond these woods. I 
wonder to whom amongst us it is 
dedicated ? 

Circe. 

I think it must be to you, Aphrodite, 
for now it is explained that on coming 
hither I met a throng of men and maidens, 

G 



98 Hypolympia : or 

sauntering slowly along in twos, exactly 
as they used to do at Paphos. 

Aphrodite. 

Were they walking apart, or wound 
together by garlands ? 

Circe. 

They were wound together by the 
arm of the boy coiled about the waist of 
the girl, or resting upon it, a symbol, no 
doubt, of your cestus. 

Aphrodite [eager/y]. 

With any animation of gesture, Circe ? 

Circe. 

With absolutely none. The maidens 
were dressed — but not all of them — in 
robes of that very distressing electric 
blue that bites into the eye, that blue 
which never was on sky or sea, and 
which was absolutely banished from every 



The Gods in the Island 99 

colour-combination in Olympus. It 
was employed in Hades as a form of 
punishment, if you recollect. 

Aphrodite. 

No doubt, then, this procession was a 
penitential one, and its object to appease 
my offended deity. But what a mistake, 
poor things ! No one ever regained my 
favour by making a frump of herself 

Circe. 

After these couples, came, in a very 
slow but formless moving group, figures 
of a sombre and spectral kind, draped, 
both males and females, in dull black, 
with little ornaments of gold in their 
hands. It was with the utmost amaze- 
ment that, on their coming closer, 1 
recognised some of the faces as those of 
the ruddy, gentle barbarians to whom we 
owe our existence here. You cannot 
think how painful it was to see them 



100 Hypolympia : or 

thus travestied. In their well-fitting 
daily dress they look very attractive in a 
rustic mode ; there is one large one that 
labours in the barn, who reminds me, 
when his sleeves are turned up, of 
Ulysses. But, oh ! Aphrodite, you must 
contrive to let them know that you pardon 
their shortcomings, and relieve them from 
the horrors of this remorseful costume. I 
know not which is more depressing to the 
heart, the blue of the young or the black 
of the aged. 

Aphrodite. 

I expect that at this distance from the 
centre of things, all manner of misconcep- 
tion has crept into my ritual. Of course, 
I cannot now demand any rites, and that 
the dear good people should pay them at 
all is very touching. 

Circe. 

Don't you think that it would be 



The Gods in the Island 101 

delightful to introduce here a purer form 
of liturgy ? It is very sad to see your 
spirit so little understood. 

Aphrodite. 

Well, I hardly know. It is kind o 
you, Circe, to suggest such a thing. No 
doubt it would be very pleasant. But I 
feel, of course, the hollowness of the 
whole concern. We must be careful not 
to deceive the barbarians. 

Circe. 

Certainly ... oh ! yes, certainly. 
But. ... I am sure it would be so good 
for them to have a ritual to follow. We 
should not absolutely assert to them that 
you still exist as an immortal, but I do 
not see why we should insist on tearing 
every illusion away from them. Suppose 
I could persuade them that you were no 
longer displeased with them, and that you 
were quite willing to let them wear pink 



102 Hypolympia : or 

and white robes again, and plenty of 
flowers in their hair ; and suppose I 
encouraged them to sacrifice turtle-doves 
on your altar, and arrange garlands of 
wild roses in the proper way, don't you 
think you could bring yourself to make a 
concession ? 



Aphrodite. 

What do you mean by a "conces- 
sion " ? 



Circe. 

Well, for instance, when they were all 
assembled in the temple, and had sung a 
hymn, and the priest had gone up to the 
altar, could you not suddenly make an 
appearance, voluminous and splendid, and 
smile upon them ? Could you not 
shower a few champak-blossoms over the 
congregation ? 



The Gods in the Island 103 

Aphrodite. 

It is very ingenious of you to think of 
these things. But I suppose it would not 
be right to attempt to do it. In the 
first place it would encourage them to 
believe in my immortality 

Circe. 

Oh ! but to believe is such a salutary 
discipline to the lower classes. That is 
the whole principle of religion, surely, 
Aphrodite ? It is not for people like 
ourselves. You know how indolent 
Dionysus is, but he always attended the 
temple when he was hunting upon 
Nysa. 

Aphrodite. 

There is a great deal in that argument, 
no doubt. Only, what will be the result 
when they discover that it is all a mistake, 
and that I am a mortal like themselves ? 



104 Hypolympia : or 

Circe. 

You never can be a mortal like the 
barbarians, for you have been a force 
ruling the sea, and the flowers, and the 
winds, and twisting the^ blood of man 
and woman in your fingers like a living 
skein of soft red silk. They will always 
worship you. It may not be in temples 
any longer, not with a studied liturgy, 
but wherever the sap rises in a flower, or 
the joy of life swims up in the morning 
through the broken film of dreams, or a 
young man perceives for the first time 
that the girl he meets is comely, you will 
be worshipped. Aphrodite, for the essence 
of your immortality is the cumulative 
glow of its recurrent mortality. 

Hermes \entering ah'upt/y]. 
You will be disappointed 

Circe. 

Ah! you followed the youths and 



The Gods in the Island 105 

maidens to the little temple of our friend. 
Is it not beautiful ? 

Hermes. 

It is hideous. 

Circe. 
Are you sure that it is a temple at all ? 

Hermes, 

I confess that I was for a long time 
uncertain, but on the whole I believe 
that it is. 

Aphrodite. 

But is it dedicated to me? 

Hermes. 

That is the disappointment. ... It 
is best to tell you at once that I see no 
evidence whatever that it is. 



106 Hypolympia : or 

Circe. 

1 am very much disappointed. 

Aphrodite. 

1 am very much relieved. But could 
you not gather from the decoration of 
the interior to whom of us it is inscribed? 

Hermes. 

It is not decorated at all : white- 
washed walls, wooden benches, naked 
floors. 

Circe. 

But what is the nature of the sculp- 
ture r 

Hermes. 

I could see no sculpture, except a sort 
of black tablet, with names upon it, and 
at the sides two of the youthful atten- 
dants of Eros — those that have wings, 
indeed, but cannot rest. These were 



The Gods in the Island 107 

exceedingly ill-carven in a kind of lime- 
stone. And I hardly like to tell you 
what I found behind the altar 

Aphrodite. 

I am not easily shocked. My poor 
worshippers sometimes demand a very 
considerable indulgence. 

Circe. 

Nothing very ugly, I hope ? 

Hermes. 

Yes ; very ugly, and still more incom- 
prehensible. But nothing that could 
spring out of any misconception of the 
ritual of our friend. No ; I hardly like 
to tell you. Well, a gaunt painted 
figure, with spines about the bleeding 
forehead 

Aphrodite. 

Was it fastened to any symbol.^ Did 



108 Hypolympia : or 

you notice anything that explained the 
horror of it ? 



Hermes. 

No. I did not observe it very closely. 
As I was glancing at it, the celebration or 
ritual, or whatever we are to call it, be- 
gan, and I withdrew to the door, not 
knowing what frenzy might seize upon 
the worshippers. 

Aphrodite. 

There was a cannibal altar in Arcadia 
to Phoebus, so I have heard. He instantly 
destroyed it, and scattered the ignorant 
savages who had raised it. 

Hermes. 

There was a touch of desolate majesty 
about this figure. I fear that it portrays 
some blighting Power of suffering or of 
grief [He shudders.'] 



The Gods in the Island 109 

Aphrodite. 

There are certainly deities of whom 
we knew nothing in Olympus. Perhaps 
this is the temple of some Unknown 
God. 

Hermes. 

I admit that I thought, with this pic- 
ture, and with their sinister garments of 
black and of blue, and with the bareness 
and harshness of the temple, that some- 
thing might be combined which it would 
give me no satisfaction to witness. I 
placed myself near the door, where, in a 
moment, I could have regained the ex- 
quisite forest, and the odour of this carpet 
of woodruff, and your enchanting society. 
But nothing occurred to disconcert me. 
After genuflexions and liftings of the 
voice 

Aphrodite. 

What was the object of these r 



110 Hypolympia : or 

Hermes. 

I absolutely failed to determine. Well, 
the priest — if I can so describe a man 
without apparent dedication, robed with- 
out charm, and exalted by no visible act 
of sacrifice — ascended a species of open 
box, and spoke to the audience from the 
upturned lid of it. 



Circe. 

What did he say ? Did he explain 
the religion of his people? 



Hermes. 

To tell you the truth, Circe, although 
I listened with what attention I could, 
and although the actual language was 
perfectly clear to me — you know I am 
rather an accomplished linguist — I formed 
no idea of what he said. I could not find 
the starting-point of his experience. 



The Gods in the Island 111 

Circe. 

To whom can this temple be possibly 
dedicated ? 



Aphrodite. 

Depend upon it, it is not a temple at 
all. What Hermes was present at was 
unquestionably some gathering of local 
politicians. Poor these barbarians may 
be, but they could not excuse by poverty 
such a neglect of the decencies as he 
describes. No flowers, no bright robes, 
no music of stringed instruments, no 
sacrifice — it is quite impossible that the 
meanest of sentient beings should worship 
in such a manner. And as for the pic- 
ture which you saw behind what you 
took to be the altar, I question not that 
it is used to keep in memory some 
ancestor who suffered from the tyranny 
of his masters. In the belief that he- 
was assisting at a process of rustic worship. 



112 Hy poly mpia 

our poor Hermes has doubtless attended 
a revolutionary meeting. 

Circe. 

Dreadful ! But may its conflicts long 
l^eep outside the arcades of this delightful 
woodland ! 

Hermes. 

And still we know not to which of us 
the mild barbarians pray ! 



VII 



VII 

[The same scene y but fio one present. A 
butterfly fiits across from the left, 
makes several pirouettes and exit 
to the right. Hera enters quickly 
from the left.'] 

Hera. 

Could I be mistaken ? What is this 
overpowering perfume ? Is it conceiv- 
-able that in this new world odours take 
corporeal shape ? Anything is conceiv- 
able, except that I was mistaken in 
thinking that I saw it fly across this 
meadow. It can only have been beckon- 
ing me. [The butterfly re-enters from the 
right, and, after tozvering upwards, and 
wheeling in every direction, settles on a cluster 
'if meadow-sweet. It is follozved from the 



116 Hypolympia : or 

right by Eros. He and Hera look at one 
another in silence?^ 



Hera. 

You are occupied, Eros. I will not 
detain you. 

Eros. 

I propose to stay here for a little while. 
Are you moving on ? \Each of them fixes 
eyes on the insect."] 

Hera. 

I must beg you to leave me, or to 
remain perfectly motionless. I am exces- 
sively agitated. 

Eros. 

I followed the being which is hanging 
downwards from that spray of blossom. 
Does it recall some one to you ? 



The Gods in the Island 117 

Hera. 

Not in its present position. But I 
will not pretend, Eros, that it is not the 
source of my agitation. Look at it now, 
as it flings itself round the stalk, and 
opens and waves its fans. Do you still 
not comprehend f 

Eros. 

I see nothing in it now. I am dis- 
appointed. 

Hera. 

But those great coloured eyes, waxing 
and waning ! Those moons of pearl ! 
The copper that turns to crimson, the 
turquoise that turns to violet, the greenish, 
pointed head that swings and rolls its 
yoke of slender plumage ! Ah ! Eros, is 
it possible that you do not perceive that 
it is a symbol of my peacock, my bird 
translated into the language of this narrow 
and suppressed existence of ours ? What 



118 Hypolympia : or 

a strange and exquisite messenger ! My 
poor peacock, with a strident shriek of 
terror, fled from me on that awful morn- 
ing, the flames singeing its dishevelled 
train, its wings helplessly flapping in the 
torrents of conflagration. It bade me 
no adieu, its clangour of despair rang 
forth, an additional note of discord, from 
the inner courts of my palace. And out 
of its agony, of its horror, it has contrived 
to send me this adorable renovation of 
itself, all its grace and all its splendour 
reincarnated in this tiny creature. But 
alas ! how am I to capture, how to 
communicate with it ? 

Eros. 

I hesitate to disturb your illusion, 
Hera. But you are singularly mistaken. 
I have a far greater interest in this 
messenger than you can have ; and if you 
dream its presence to be a tribute to 
your pride, I am much more tenderly 



The Gods in the Island 119 

certain that it is a reproach to my affec- 
tions. See, those needlessly gaudy wings,. 
— a mere disguise to bring it through the 
multitude of its enemies — are closed nov/,., 
and it resumes its pendulous attitude, as 
aerial as an evening cloud, as graceful as- 
sorrow itself, sable as the shadow of a 
leaf in the moonlight. 

Hera. 

Whom do you suppose it to reprefent,. 
Eros r 

Eros. 

"Represent" is an inadequate word- 
I know it to be, in some transubstantia- 
tion, the exact nature of which I shall 
have to investigate, my adored and 
injured Psyche. You never appreciated 
her, Hera. 

Hera. 

It was necessary in such a society as^ 



120 Hypolympia : or 

ours to preserve the hierarchical distinc- 
tions. She was a charming little creature, 
and I never allowed myself to indulge in 
the violent prejudice of your mother. 
When you presented her at last, I do not 
think that you had any reason to re- 
proach me with want of civility. 
\The butterfly dances of.] 

Hera and Eros together. 

It is gone. 

\^A pause."] 
Hera. 

We are in a curious dilemma. Unless 
we are to conceive that two of the lesser 
Olympians have been able to combine in 
adopting a symbolic disguise, either you 
or I have been deceived. That tantalising 
visitant can scarcely have been at the 
same time Psyche and my peacock. 

Eros. 

I know not why ; and for my part 



The Gods in the Island 121 

am perfectly willing to recognise its spots 
and moons to your satisfaction, if you 
will permit me to recognise my own 
favourite in the garb of grief. 

Hera. 

My bird was ever a masquerader — it 
may be so. 

Eros. 

Psyche, also, was not unaccustomed to 
disguises. 

Hera. 

You take the recollection coolly, Eros. 

Eros. 

Would you have me shriek and moan ? 
Would you have me throw myself in 
convulsive ecstasy upon that ambiguous 
insect ? You are not the first, Hera, who 
has gravely misunderstood my character. 
I am not, I have never been, a victim of 



122 Hypolympia : or 

the impulsive passions. The only serious 
misunderstandings which I have ever had 
with my illustrious mother have resulted 
from her lack of comprehension of this 
fact. She is impulsive, if you will ! Her 
existence has been a succession of centri- 
fugal adventures, in which her sole idea 
has been to hurl herself outward from 
the solitude of her individuality. I, on 
the other hand, leave very rarely, and 
with peculiar reluctance, the rock-crystal 
tower from which I watch the world^ 
myself unavoidable and unattainable. 
My arrows penetrate every disguise, every 
species of physical and spiritual armour, 
but they are not turned against my own 
heart. I have always been graceful and 
inconspicuous in my attitudes. The 
image of Eros, with contorted shoulders 
and projected elbows, aiming a shaft at 
himself, is one which the Muse of 
Sculpture would shudder to contem- 
plate. 



The Gods in the Island 123 



H 



ERA. 



Then what was the meaning of your 
apparent infatuation for Psyche ? 

Eros. 

O do not call it "apparent." It was 
genuine and it was all-absorbing. But it 
was absolutely exceptional. Looking 
back, it seems to me that I must have 
been gazing at myself in a mirror, and 
have dismissed an arrow before I realised 
who was the quarry. It is not necessary 
to remind you of the circumstances 

Hera. 

You would, I suppose, describe them 
as exceptional ? 

Eros, 

As wholly exceptional. And could I 
be expected to prolong an ardour so 
foreign to my nature? The victim of 
passion cannot be a contemplator at the 



124 Hypolympia : or 

same moment, and I may frankly admit 
to you, Hera, that during the period of 
my infatuation for Psyche, there were 
complaints from every province of the 
universe. It was said that unless my 
attention could be in a measure diverted 
from that admirable girl, there would be 
something like a stagnation of general 
vitality. Phoebus remarked one day, 
that if the ploughman became the plough 
the cessation of harvests would be inevit- 
able. 

Hera. 

It was at that moment, I suppose, that 
you besought Zeus so passionately to con- 
fer upon Psyche the rank of a goddess? 

Eros. 

You took that, no doubt, for an evidence 
of my intenser infatuation. An error ; 
it was a proof that the arguments of the 
family were beginning to produce their 



The Gods in the Island 125 

effect upon me. I perceived my re- 
sponsibility, and I recognised that it 
was not the place of the immortal 
organiser of languishment to be sighing 
himself. To deify my lovely Psyche was 
to recognise her claim, and — and 

Hera. 

To give you a convenient excuse for 
neglecting her ? 

Eros. 

It is that crudity of yours, Hera, which 
has before now made your position in 
Olympus so untenable. You lack the 
art of elegant insinuation. 

Hera. 

Am 1 then .to believe that you were 
playing a part when you seemed a little 
while ago so anxious to recognise Psyche 
in the drooping butterfly ? 



126 Hypolympia : or 

Eros. 

Oh ! far from it. The sentiment of 
recognition was wholly genuine and 
almost rapturously pleasurable. It is true 
that in the confusion of our flight I had 
not been able to give a thought to our 
friend, who was, unless I am much 
mistaken, absent from her palace. Nor 
will I be so absurd as to pretend that I 
have, for a long while past, felt at all 
keenly the desire for her company. She 
has very little conversation. There 
are certain peculiarities of manner, 
which 

Hera. 

I know exactly what you mean. My 
peacock has a very peculiar voice, 
and 

Eros {impatiently]. 

You must permit me to protest against 
any comparison between Psyche and your 



The Gods in the Island 127 

worthy bird. But I was going to say 
that the moment I saw the brilliant little 
discrepancy which led us both to this 
spot — and to which I hesitate to give a 
more definite name — I was instantly and 
most pleasantly reminded of certain 
delightful episodes, of a really charming 
interlude, if I may so call it. I cannot 
be perfectly certain what connection our 
ebullient high-flyer has with the goddess 
whose adorer I was and whose friend I 
shall ever be. But the symbol — if it be 
no more than a symbol — has been suffi- 
cient to awaken in me all that was most 
enjoyable in our relations. 1 shall often 
wander in these woods, among the cloud- 
like masses of odorous blossom, in this 
windless harbour of sunlight and the 
murmur of leaves, in the hope of finding 
the little visitant here. She will never 
fail to remind me, but without distur- 
bance, of all that was happiest in a series 
of relations which grew at last not so 



128 Hypolympia 

wholly felicitous as they once had been. 
One of the pleasures this condition of 
mortality offers us, I foresee, is the per- 
petual recollection of what was delightful 
in the one serious liaison of my life, and 
of nothing else. 

Hera. 

Aphrodite would charge you with 
cynicism, Eros. 

Eros. 

It would not be the first time that she 
has mistaken my philosophy for petulance. 



VIII 



VIII 

[On the terrace beside the Iioiise are seated 
Persephone, Maia, and Chloris. 
The afternoon is rapidly zvan'ing, and 
lights are seen to tzvinkie on the farther 
shore of the sea. As the tzcilight 
deepens^ from just out of sight a mans 
voice is heard singing as follozvs : 

As I lay on the grass, zvith the sun in the 

west, 
A -woman zvent by me, a babe at her breast ; 

She kissed it and pressed it. 

She cooed, she caressed it, 
Then rocked it to sleep in her elbozv-nest. 

She rocked it to rest zvith a sad little song, 
Hozv the days zvere grozvn short, and the 
nights grozvn long ; 



132 Hypolympia : or 

How love was a rover. 
How summer was over. 
How the zvinds of winter zvere shrill and 
strong. 

We must haste, she sang, while the sky is 

bright, 
While the paths are plain and the town's in 
sight. 
Lest the shadows that watch us 
Should creep up and catch us. 
For the dead walk here in the grass at night, 

\The voice withdraws farther down the 
ivoods, hutfi'om a lower distance, in the 
clear evening, the last stanza is heard 
repeated. The Goddesses continue 
silent, until the voice has died away.] 

Chloris 

Rude words set to rude music ; but 
they seem to penetrate to the very core 
of the heart. 



The Gods in the Island 133 

Maia. 

Are you sad to-night, Chloris ? 

Chloris. 

Not sad, precisely ; but anxious, feverish, 
a little excited. 

Persephone. 

Hark ! the song begins again. 

[They listen, and from far azvay the 
zvords come faintly back : 

For the dead walk here in the grass at night. '\ 

Maia. 

The dead ! Shall we see them ? 

Chloris. 

Why not ? These barbarians appear to 
avoid them with an invincible terror, but 
why should we do so ? 

Maia. 

I do not feel that it would be possible 



134 Hypolympia : or 

for the dead to " catch " me, since I 
should be Instantly and keenly watching 
for them, and much more eager to secure 
their presence than they could be to secure 
mine. 



Chloris. 

We do not know of what we speak, for 
it may very well be that the barbarians 
have some experience of these beings. 
Their influence maybe not merely malign, 
but disgusting. 

Maia. 

How ignorant we are ! 

Chloris. 

Surely, Persephone, you must be able 
to give us some idea of the dead. Were 
they not the sole occupants of your pale 
dominions? 



The Gods in the Island 135 

Persephone. 

It is veiy absurd of me, but really I do 
not seem to recollect anything about 
them. 

Maia. 

I suppose you disliked living in Hades 
very much ? 

Persephone. 

Well, I spent six months there every 
year, to please my husband. But a great 
deal of my time was taken up in corre- 
sponding with my mother. She was 
always nervous if she did not hear regu- 
larly from me. I really feel quite ashamed 
of my inattention. 

Maia. 

You don't even recall what the inhabi- 
tants of the country were like ? 



136 Hypolympia : or 

Persephone. 

I recollect that they seemed dread- 
fully wanting in vitality. They came in 
troops when I held a reception ; they 
swept by. . . . I cannot remember what 
they were like 

Chloris. 

It must have been dreary for you there, 
Persephone. 

Persephone. 

Well, we had our own interests. 1 
believe I did my duty. It seemed to me 
that I must be there if Pluto wished it, 
and I was pleased to be with him. But 
— if you can understand me — there was 
a sort of a dimness over everything, and 
I never entered into the political life of 
the place. As to the social life, you can 
imagine that they were not people that 
one cared to know. At the same time, 
of course, I feel now how ridiculous it 



The Gods in the Island 137 



was of me to hold that position and not 
take more interest. 

Maia. 

Demeter, of course, never encouraged 
you to make any observation of the man- 
ners and customs of Hades. 

Persephone. 

Oh, no ! that was just it. She always 
said : " Pray don't let me hear the least 
thing about the horrid place." You re- 
member that she very strongly disap- 
proved of my going there at all 

Chloris. 

Yes ; I remember that Arethusa, when 
she brought me back my daffodils, told 
me how angry Demeter was — — 

Persephone. 

And yet she was quite nice to my 



138 Hypolympia : or 

husband when once Zeus had decided that 

I had better go. 

[There is a pause. Mai a rises and 
leans on the parapet^ over the 
woods, now drowned in twilight, 
to the sea, which still faintly glit- 
ters. She turns and comes back 
to the other two, standing above 
ihem.l 

Maia. 

I, too, might have observed something 
as I went sailing over the purpureal ocean. 
But I was always talking to my sisters. 
The fact is we all of us neglected to learn 
anything about death. 

Chloris. 

We thought of it as of something hap- 
pening in that world of Hades which 
could never become of the slightest 
importance to us. Who could have 



The Gods in the Island 139 

imagined that we should have to take it 
into practical account ? 

Maia. 

Well, now we shall have to accept 
it, to be prepared for its tremendous 
approach. 

Chloris [qfter a pause']. 

Perhaps this famous "death" may 
prove after all to be only another kind 
of life. [Rising and approaching Maia.] 
Don't you think this is indicated even 
by the song of these barbarians ? Be- 
sides, our stay here must be the ante- 
chamber to something wholly different. 

Maia. 

We can hardly suppose that it can lead 
to nothing. 

Chloris. 

No ; surely we shall put off more or 



140 Hypolympia : or 

less leisurely, with dignity or without it, 
the garments of our sensuous existence, 
and discover something underneath all 
these textures of the body ? 

Persephone. 

One of our priests in Hades, I do 
remember, sang that silence was a voice, 
and declared that even in the deserts of 
immensity the soul was stunned and 
deafened by the chorus and anti-chorus of 
nature. 

Chloris. 

What did he mean ? What is the 
soul ? 

Maia. 

I must confess that in this our humility, 
our corporeal degradation, instead o 
feeling crushed, I am curiously conscious 
of a wider range of sensibility. Perhaps 



The Gods in the Island 141 

that is the soul ? Perhaps, in the sup- 
pression of our immortality, something 
metallic, something hermetical, has been 
broken down, and already we stand more 
easily exposed to the influences of the 
spirit ? 



Chloris. 

In that case, to slough the sheaths of 
the body, one by one, ought to be to 
come nearer to the final freedom, and 
the last coronation and consecration of 
existence may prove to be this very 
" death " we dread so much. 



Persephone. 

I can fancy that such conjectures as 
these may prove to be one of the chief 
sources of satisfaction in this new 
mortality of ours : the variegated play 
of light and shadow thrown upon it. 



142 Hypolympia : or 

Well, the less we know and see, the more 
exciting it ought to be to guess and to 
peer. 

Maia. 

And some of us, depend upon it, will 
be able to persuade ourselves that we 
alone can use our eyesight in the pitch 
profundity of darkness, and these will 
find a peculiar pleasure in tormenting 
the others who have less confidence in 
their imagination. 

\They seat themselves, and are silent. 
Far azvay is once more faintly 
heard the song, and then it dies 
azvay. A long silence. Then, 
a confused hum of cries and voices 
is heard, and approaches the 
terrace from below. The God- 
desses start to their feet. From 
the left appear Silvanus, 
Alcyone and Fauna, bearing 
the body of Cydippe, which they 



The Gods in the Island 143 

place very carefully on the grass in 
front of the scene. '\ 

Chloris \in a?i excited whisper\ 

Is this our first experience of the 
mystery ? 

Fauna and Alcyone. 

She is dead ! She is dead ! 

Maia. 

The first of the immortals to succumb 
to the burden of mortality ! 

SiLVANUS. 

Where is yEsculapius ? Call him, 
call him ! 

Maia. 

He cannot bring back the dead. 

Persephone. 

What has happened ? Cydippe is 



144 Hypolympia : or 

livid, her limbs are stark, her eyes are 
wide open, and motionless, and un- 
naturally brilliant. 



SiLVANUS [to ChLORIs]. 

She was gathering a little posy of your 
wild flowers — eyebright, and crane's bills 
and small blue pansies, when 

Fauna. 

There glided out of the intertwisted 
fibres of the blue-berries a serpent 

Alcyone. 

Grey, with black arrows down the 
spine, and a flat, diabolical head 

Fauna. 

And Cydippe never saw it, and 
stretched out her hand again, and — 



The Gods in the Island 145 

SiLVANUS. 

The viper fixed his fangs here, in the 
blue division of the vein, here in her 
translucent wrist. See, it sw^ells, it 
darkens ! 



Fauna. 

And with a scream she fell, and 
swooned away, and died, turning ^back- 
wards, so that her hair caught in the 
springy herbage, and her head rolled a 
little in her pain, so that her hair was 
loosened and tightened, and look, there 
are still little tufts of blue-berry leaves in 
her hair. 



SiLVANUS. 

But here comes ^^Esculapius. 

[They all greet ^Mscvlayius^ who enters 
from the left, with his basket of 
remedies.] 

K 



146 Hypolympia ; or 

Persephone. 

Ah ! sage master of simples, this is a 
problem beyond thy solution, a case 
beyond thy cure. 



^scuLAPiL's [io the goddesses']. 

You think that Cydippe is dead ? 

Maia. 

Unquestionably. Tho savage viper 
has slain her. 

^SCULAPIUS. 

Then prepare to behold what should 
seem a greater miracle to you than to me. 
But, first, Silvanus, bind a strip of cloth- 
ing very tightly round the upper part of 
her arm, for no more than we can help 
of those treasonable messengers must 
fly posting from the wound to Cydippe's 
heart. 



The Gods in the Island 147 

Persephone [sen tenth us ly\ . 

It can receive no more such messages. 

^SCULAPIUS. 

I think you are mistaken. And now. 
Fauna, a few drops of water in this cup 
from the trickling spring yonder. That 
is well. Stand farther away from Cydippe, 
all of you. 

Persephone. 

What are those pure white needles you 
drop into the water ? How quickly they 
dissolve. Ah ! he lays the mixture to 
Cydippe's wound. She sighs ; her eye- 
lids close ; her heart is beating. What 
is this magic, iEsculapius ? 

^ESCULAPIUS. 

Do not tell your husband, Persephone, 
or he will complain to Zeus that I am 
depriving him of his population. But if 
there is magic in this, there is no miracle. 



148 Hypolympia : or 

[To the others?^ Take her softly into the 
house and lay her down. She will take a 
long sleep, and will wake at the end of it 
with no trace of the poison or recollection 
of her suffering. 

\They carry Cydippe forth. Perse- 
phone, Maia, and -^sculapius 
remain^ 

Maia. 

Then — she was not dead ? 

^SCULAPIUS. 

No ; it was but the poison-swoon, 
which precedes death, if it be not 
arrested. 

Maia. 

How rejoiced I am ! 

Persephone. 

One would say your joy had disap- 
pointed you. 



The Gods in the Island 149 

Maia. 

No, indeed, for I am attached to 
Cydippe, but oh ! Persephone, it is strange 
to be at the very threshold of the 
mystery 

Persephone. 

And to have the opening door shut in 
our faces ? Perhaps . . . next time . . . 
they may not be able to find ^sculapius. 



IX 



IX 

[T/ie terrace J as in the first scene; Zeus 
enters from the house, conducted by 
Hebe and several of the lesser divini- 
ties. '\ 

Hebe. 

Will your Majesty be pleased to descend 
to the lower boskage ? 

Zeus. 

No ! Place my throne here, out of the 
wind, in the sun, which seems to have 
very little fire left in it, but some pleasant 
light still. The sea down there is bright 
again to-day ; the carrying of our unfor- 
tunate person upon its surface was pro- 
bably the source of immense alarm to it. 
It quaked and blackened continuously. 



154 Hypolympia : or 

Now we are removed, it regains something 
of its normal quiescence. I trust that 
the land hereabouts is dowered with a less 
painful susceptibility. 

Ganymede. 

A priest, sire, the only one who saved 
his musical instrument through our cala- 
mities, stands within. Is your Majesty 
disposed to be sung to ? 

Zeus. 

No, certainly not. Which is he ? [The 
Priest is pointed out.'] What an odd-look- 
ing person ! Yes, he may give me a 
specimen of his art — a short one. 

[Tlie Priest comes forward ; he is 
dressed in wild Thessalian raiment. 
He approaches with uncouth ges- 
tures, and a mixture of serz'ility 
and self-consciousness. On receiv- 
ing a nod from Zeus, he tunes his 
instrument and sings as follows ;] 



The Gods in the Island 155 

JVild szvttns wingivg 
Through the blue. 
Spiders springing 
To a clue. 
Till the sparkling drops rc?iczu 
All that ever 
Tout/is endeavour 
Had determined to undo. 
White and blue are hoards of treasure. 
For the panting hands of pleasure 
To go dropping, dropping, dropping, 
Without measure 
Through and through, 

Zeus. 

\"ery pretty, I must sa}'. Would }'ou 
repeat it again ? 

[Priest repeats it again.] 

Zeus. , 

What does it . . . exactly mea-i P I 
think it quite pretty, you understand. 



156 Hypolympia : or 

Priest. 

Does your Majesty receive any impres- 
sion from it ? 

Zeus. 

Well, I don't know that I could 
precisely parse it. But it is very pretty. 
Yes, I think I gain a certain impression 
from it. 

Priest. 

Do you not feel, sire, a peculiar sense 
of flush, of spring-tide — a direct juvenile 
ebullience ? 

Zeus. 

Ah, no doubt, no doubt. And a kind 
of nostalgia, or harking-back to happier 
days, a sense of their rapid passage, and 
their irrecoverability. Is that right ? 

Priest. 

It is a positive divination ! 



The Gods in the Island 157 

Zeus. 

I am conscious of the agreeable recol- 
lection of an incident 



Priest [with rapture]. 
Ah! 

Zeus. 

A little event ? 



Priest. 

You make my heart beat so high, sire, 
that I can hardly speak. Deign, sire, to 
recall that incident. 

Zeus \zuith extreme affability]. 

It was hardly an incident. ... I 
merely happened, while you were reciting 
your song, to remember an occasion on 
which — on which Iris, at the ram- 
part of our golden wall, bending back, 
was caught by the wind, and — and the 
contours were delicious. 



158 Hypolympia : or 

Priest. 

Oh ! the word, the word ! 

Zeus [with slight hauteur\ 

I do not follow you. Her rain- 
bow 

Priest. 

Ah ! yes, sire, the rainbow, the rain- 
bow ! O what an art of incontestable 
divination ! 

Zeus \niuch animated]. 

But you did not say anything about a 
rainbow, nor describe one, nor ever 
mention the elements of such a bow. 

Priest. 

Ah ! no, sire. That is the art of the 
New Poetry. It names nothing, it 
describes nothing. All that it designs to 
do is to place the mind of the listener — 
of the august and perspicacious listener — 



The Gods in the Island 159 

in such an attitude as that the unnamed, 
the undescribed object rises full in vision. 
The poet flings forth his melody, and to 
the gross ear it seems a mere tinkle of 
inanity. That is simply because the 
crowd who worship at the shrine of the 
Sminthean Apollo have been accustomed 
by an old-fashioned and ridiculously 
incompetent priesthood to look for an 
instant and mechanical relation between 
sound and sense. I would not exaggerate, 
sire ; but the kind of poetry lately culti- 
vated, not only at Delphi, but in Delos 
also, is simply obsolete. 

Zeus [suspkious/y]. 

Again I am not sure that I quite follow 
you. 

Priest. 

To your Majesty, at least, the New 
Poetry opens its casket as widely as the 
rose-bud does to the zephyr. 



160 Hypolympia : or 

Zeus. 

I can follow that — but it rather re- 
minds me of the Old Poetry. 



Priest. 

It was intended to do so. What 
promptitude of mind ! What divine 
penetration ! 

Zeus \affably\ 

I have always believed that if I had 
enjoyed leisure from public life, I should 
have excelled in my judgment of the fine 
arts. \To the V^i^iT, with gravity^ You 
are a gifted young man. Be sure that 
you employ your talents with discretion. 
Such an intellect as yours carries respon- 
sibility with it. I shall be quite pleased 
to permit you to recite "The Rainbow" 
to me again. \The Priest prepares to 
recite zV.] 



The Gods in the Island 161 



Zeus. 

Oh, not now ! Some other time I 
[Graciously dismisses the Priest.] 

Zeus \after a long pause}. 

The attitude of my family, in these 
ambiguous circumstances, is everything 
that could be desired. My original feel- 
ing of irritability has passed away. I 
should have supposed it to be what Pallas 
calls " fatigue," a confusion or discord of 
the nerve-centres, which she tells me is 
incident to mortality. What Pallas can 
possibly know about it is more than I can 
guess, especially^ as there were not infre- 
quent occasions on Olympus itself on 
which my Supreme Godhead was dis- 
turbed by flashes of what I should be 
forced to describe as exasperation, states 
of mind in which I formed — and indeed 
executed — the sudden project of breaking 
something. These were, I believe, simply 



162 Hypolympia : or 

the result of an excessive sense of respon- 
sibility. I am not one of those who 
conceive that the duty of deity is to sit 
passive beside the cup of nectar. Here 
on this island, in the permanent absence of 
that refreshment, 1 reflect (I perceive that 
I shall have very frequent opportunities 
for reflection) that I was perhaps only too 
anxious to preserve the harmony of heaven. 
My sense of decorum — may it not have 
been excessive ? From below, as I imagine, 
from the stations occupied — I will not 
say by the inanimate or half-animate 
creation, such as insects, or men, or min- 
erals — but by the demi-gods, I take it 
that the dignity and orbic beauty of our 
court appeared sublimely immaculate. 
In the inner circle, alas ! no one knows 
better than I do that there were — well, 
dissensions. I will go further, in can- 
dour to myself, and admit that these 
occasionally led to excesses. I cannot 
charge my recollection with my having 



The Gods in the Island 163 

done anything to excuse or encourage 
these. The personal conduct of the 
Sovereign was always, I cannot but be- 
lieve, above reproach. But the eccen- 
tricities — if I may style them so — of 
certain of my children were sometimes 
regrettable. I wonder that they did not 
age me ; they would do so immediately 
in my present condition. But in this 
island, where we are to swarm like animal- 
cules in a drop of water, I shall be relieved 
of all responsibility. Where there is no 
one to notice that errors are committed, 
no errors are committed. As the person of 
most experience in the whole world, I do 
not mind stating my ripe opinion that a 
fault which has no effect upon political 
conditions is in no sensible degree a fault 
at all. Pallas would contend the point, I 
suppose, but I am at ease. I shall not 
allow the conduct of my children, except 
as it shall regard myself, to affect my 
good-humour in the slightest degree. 



164 Hypolympia : or 

[Phcebus enters, slowly pacing across 
the terrace?^ 
Zeus. 

Your planet seems to have recovered 
something of its tone, Phoebus. 

Phcebus. 

If, father, you regard — as you have 
every right to do — your venerable person 
as the centre of my interests, I rejoice to 
allow that this seems to be the case. 

Zeus \with a touch ofreserve\ 

I meant that the sun shows a tendency 
to return to its forgotten orbit. It is 
quite warm here out of the wind. \Mo7'e 
genially.'] But as to myself, I admit a 
great recovery in my spirits. I have 
given up fretting for Iris, who was 
certainly lost on our way here, and 
Pallas has been showing me a curious 
little jewel she brought with her, which 
has created in me a kind of wistful cheeri- 



The Gods in the Island 165 



ness. I do not remember to have ex- 
perienced anything of the kind before. 

Phcebus. 

I declare I believe that you vv^ill adapt 
yourself as v^^ell as the rest of us to this 
anomalous existence. 

Zeus. 

We shall see ; and I shall have so 
much time now^, that I may even — v^^hat 
I am sure ought to gratify you, Phcebus, 
—be able to give my attention to the 
fine arts. A fallen monarch can always 
defy adversity by forming a collection of 
curiosities. 

Phcebus. 

If you make the gem of which Pallas 
is so proud the nucleus of your cabinet, 
I feel convinced that it will give you 
lasting satisfaction. And we are so poor 
now that it can never be complete, and 



166 Hypolympia 

therefore never become tiresome. But 
what was it that the oracle of Nemea 
amused and puzzled us by saying, " To 
form a collection is well, yet to take a 
walk is better " ? i will attend your 
Majesty to your apartments, and then 
wander in these extensive woods. 

[ExeunL 



X 



X 



[^ dell below the house, with a white 
poplar-tree growing alone. Under 
it Heracles sits, in an attitude of 
deep dejection, his club fallen at 
his feet, a horn empty at his side. 
To him enters Eros.] 

Eros. 

I have been congratulating our friends 
on their surpassing cheerfulness. Even 
Zeus is displaying a marvellous longani- 
mity in his adverse state, and Pallas is 
positively frivolous. We must have dis- 
embarked, however, upon the island of 
Paradox, for everything goes by con- 
traries ; here 1 find you, Heracles, com- 
monly so serene and uplifted, sunken 
in the pit of depression. You should 



170 Hypolympia : or 

squeeze the breath out of your melan- 
choly, as you did out of Hera's snakes so 
long ago. 

Heracles. 

That was a foolish tale. Do you not 
recollect that I am not as the rest of 
you? 

Eros. 

Come, man, brighten up ! You look 
as sulky as you did when I broke your 
bow and arrows, and set Aphrodite laugh- 
ing at you. But I have learned manners, 
and the goddesses only smile now. 
Cheer up ! How is your destiny a whit 
different from ours ? 

Heracles. 

That rude old story about Alcmena, 
Eros — it is impossible that you can be 
the dupe of that ? When I hunted lions 
on Cithaeron — that really was a gentle- 



The Gods in the Island 171 

manlike sport, my friend — when I hunted 
lions I was not a god. Gods don't hunt 
lions, Eros ; I have not gone a-hunting 
since that curious affair on Mount (Eta. 
You remember it ? 



Eros. 

I have preferred to forget it. 

Heracles. 

Only an immortal can aiford wilfully 
to forget, and I — well, you know as 
well as I do that I am only a mortal 
canonised. I never understood the in- 
cident, I confess. I lay down among the 
ferns to sleep, after an unusually heavy 
day's bag of monsters. It was sultry 
weather ; I woke to an oppressive sense 
of singeing, I found myself enveloped in 
a blaze of leaves and brushwood. . . . 
But I bore you, and what does it matter 
now ? What does anything matter } 



172 Hypolympia : or 

Eros. 

No, no ; pray continue ! I am exces- 
sively interested. You throw a light on 
something that has always puzzled me, 
something that 

Heracles. 

A dense black smoke blinded and 
numbed me. The next moment, as it 
seemed — perhaps it was the next day — I 
was hustled up through the aether to 
Olympus, and dumped down at the foot 
of Zeus' throne. Perhaps you remember ? 

Eros. 

Yes, for I was there. 

Heracles. 

All of you were there. And Zeus 
came down and took me by the wrist. 
Olympus rang with shouts and the clap- 
ping of hands. I was hailed with 



The Gods in the Island 173 

unanimity as an immortal ; the ambrosia 
melted between my charred lips ; I rose 
up amongst you all, immaculate and 
fresh. But when, or how, or wherefore I 
have never known. And now I shall 
never care to know. 

Eros. 

You are a strange mixture, Heracles ; 
strangely contradictory. You never 
quailed before any scaly horror, you never 
spared a truculent robber or a noisome 
beast, nor avoided a laborious act 

Heracles. 

These might be quoted,! should have 
thought, as instances of my consistency. 

Eros. 

Yes, but then (you must really forgive 
me) your weakness in the matter of 
Omphale did seem, to those who knew 
you not, like want of self-respect. I 



174 Hypolympia : or 

have the reputation of shrinking, in the 
pursuit of pleasure, from no fantastic 
disguise, but I never sat spinning in the 
garments of a servant-maid. You must 
have looked a strange daughter of the 
plough, Heracles. I blush for you to 
think of it. 



Heracles. 

It was odd, certainly. Yet \^ you can- 
not comprehend it, Eros, I despair of 
explaining it to anybody. I should 
never do it again. You must admit I 
showed no want of firmness afterwards in 
dealing with Hebe, but then, she never 
interested me. Is she here ? But do not 
reply, I am not anxious to learn. 

Eros. 

Your dejection passes beyond all 
bounds. You cannot have been shown 
the singularly cheerful little jewel which 



The Gods in the Island 175 

Pallas has brought with her I It raises 
every one's spirits. 

Heracles. 

It will not raise mine ; for all of you, 
Eros, have been immortals from the 
beginning, and your mortality is a new 
and pungent flavour on the moral palate. 
But the taste of it was known of old to 
me, and I am not its dupe. It simply 
carries me back to the ancient weary 
round of ceaseless struggle, unending 
battle, incessant renascence of the sprout- 
ing heads of Hydra ; to all that from 
which the windless Olympus was a 
refuge. Hope is presented — to one who 
has tasted it and who knows that it is 
futile — without reawakening, under such 
new conditions as we have here, any zest 
of adventure. The jewel of Pandora 
may be exhilarating to fallen immortality ; 
it has no lustre whatever for a backsliding 
mortal. 



176 Hypolympia : or 

[Sounds of laughter are heard, and 
steps ascending from the shore. ^ 

Eros \to Heracles]. 

Draw your lion's skin about you less 
negligently, Heracles ; I hear visitants 
approaching. You are not in the wood- 
ways of CEta. 

\The OcEANiDES rush in from the lower 
woodlands. They are carrying 
torches, and arrive in a condition 
of the highest exhilaration. Eros 
proceeds a step or two to meet 
them, with a smile and a mock 
reverence. Heracles, brooding 
over his knees, does not even raise 
his eyes at their clamorous entry ^ 

Eros. 

Are you proceeding to set our Father 
Zeus on fire, or do;]you intend to repeat 
on our unwilling Heracles the rites of 
canonisation ? Have a care with those 



The Gods in the Island 177 

absurd flambeaux ; you will put all the 
underwood aflame. What are you doing 
with torches ? 



Amphitrite. 

It was Hephaestus who gave them to 
us to hold. He is in a cave down there 
by the sea, making the most ingenious 
things in the darkness. He called us in 
to hold these lights 

Doris. 

And oh, Eros, we had such fun, teasing 
him- — - 

PiTHO. 

He was quite angry at last 



Amphitrite. 

And threatened to nail us to the 
cliff 

M 



178 Hypolympia : or 

PiTHO. 

And off we ran, and left him in the 
dark. 



Doris. 

He is coming after us. I never felt so 
frightened. 

Amphitrite. 

I never enjoyed myself anyw^here so 
much. 

PiTHO. 

Come away, come away ! If he is 
going to pursue, let us give him a long 
chase, and leave him panting at last ! 

[T^e OcEANiDEs escape, in a tumult of 
laughter^ through the upper woods, 
as Hephaestus, limping heavily, 
and much out of breath, appears 
from below. '\ 



The Gods in the Island 179 

Hephaestus. 

The rogues, the rogues ! 

Eros. 

What a cataract of animal spirits ! I 
am afraid, Hephaestus, that you do not 
escape, even here, from the echoes of the 
laughter of heaven. 

Heracles [saz'age/y]. 

Follow them, and strike them down. 
Take my club, Hephaestus, if you have 
lost your hammer. 

Hephaestus. 

Strike them ! Strike the darling 
rogues ? I would as soon wrap your too- 
celebrated tunic about a little playful 
marmozet. What is the matter with 
you, Heracles ? 

Heracles. 

What change, indeed, has come over 



180 Hypolympia : or 

you, you sulky artificer ? Time waswhen 
your pincers would have met in the 
flesh of maid or man who disturbed you 
in your work. Have you left your forge 
to cool for the mere pleasure of clamber- 
ing after these ridiculous children ? Go 
back to it, Hephaestus, go back and be 
ashamed. 

Hephaestus. 

You do not seem deeply engaged 
yourself. You look sourer and idler 
than the lion's head that dangles at your 
shoulder. The days are long here, 
though not too long. My handicraft 
will spare me for half an hour to sport 
with these exquisite and affable fragilities. 
I rather enjoy being laughed at. On 
Olympus I was rarely troubled by such 
teasing attentions. The little ones 
seem to enjoy themselves in their exile, 
and, to say true, so do I. My work was 
carried on, I admit, much more smoothly 



The Gods in the Island 181 

and surely than it can be here, and my 
hand, I am afraid, in crossing the sea, 
has lost much of its infallible cunning. 
But I enjoy the exercise, and I look 
onward to the art as I never did before, 
and I seem to have more leisure. Can 
you explain it, Eros ^ 

Eros. 

I do not attempt to do so, but I feel a 
similar and equally surprising serenity. 
Heracles is insensible to it, it seems, and 
he gives me a sort of reason. 

Hephaestus. 
What is it ? 

Eros. 

Well ... I am not sure that. . . . 
Perhaps I ought to leave him to explain 
it. 



182 Hypolympia : or 

Heracles. 

You would not be able to comprehend 

me. I am not sure that I myself 

[Tzvo of t^e OcEANiDEs re-enter, much 
more seriously than before, and 
with an eager importance of ges- 
ture.'] 



Amphitrite. 

We are not playing now. We have a 
message from Zeus, Hephaestus. He 
says that he is waiting impatiently for 
the sceptre you are making for him. 



Doris. 

Yes, you must hurry back to your 
cave. And we are longing to see what 
ornament you are putting on the sceptre. 
Let us come with you. We will hold 
the torches for you as steadily as if we 
were made of marble. 



The. Gods in the Island 183 

Hephaestus. 

Come, then, come. Let us descend 
together. I hope that my science has 
not quitted me. We will see whether 
even on this rugged shore and with these 
uncouth instruments, I cannot prove to 
Zeus that I am still an artist. Come, I 
am in a hurry to begin. Give me your 
hands, Amphitrite and Doris. 

[ExeuJtf. 



XI 



XI 

[ The glen, through which the stream, slightly 
flooded by a night's rain, runs faintly 
turbid. Dionysus, earnestly engaged 
in angling, does not hear the approach 

O/'-^SCULAPIUS.] 

^scuLAPius \in a high, voluble hey]. 

It Is not to me but to you, O ruddy 
son of Semele, that the crowds of invalids 
will throng, if you cultivate this piscatory 
art so eagerly, since to do nothing, 
serenely, in the open air, without becom- 
ing fatigued, is to storm the very citadel 
of ill-health, and 

Dionysus [testily, without turning round]. 
Hush ! hush ! ... I felt a nibble. 



188 Hypolympia : or 

iEscuLAPius [in a whisper^ flinging himself 
upon the grass\ 
It was in such a secluded spot as this 
that Apollo heard the trout at Aroanius 
sing like thrushes. 



Dionysus. 

How these poets exaggerate ! The 
trout sang, I suppose, like the missel- 
thrush. 



iEsCULAPIUS. 

What song has the missel-thrush ? 

Dionysus. 

It does not sing at all. Nor do trout. 

.^SCULAPIUS. 

You are sententious, Dionysus. 



The Gods in the Island 189 

Dionysus. 

No, but closely occupied. I am in- 
tent on the subtle movements of my rod, 
round which my thoughts and fancies 
wind and blossom till they have made a 
thyrsus of it. Now, however, I shall 
certainly catch no more fish, and so I 
may rest and talk to you. Are you 
searching for simples in this glen ? 

-^SCULAPIUS. 

To tell you the plain truth, I am 
waiting for Nike. She has given me an 
appointment here. 

Dionysus. 

I have not seen her since we arrived 
on this island. 

.^SCULAPIUS. 

You have seen her, but you have not 



190 Hypolympia : or 

recognised her. She goes about in a 
perpetual incognito. Poor thing, in our 
flight from Olympus she lost all her 
attributes — her wings dropped ofF, her 
laurel was burned, she flung her armour 
away, and her palm-tree obstinately 
refused to up-root itself 



Dionysus. 

No doubt at this moment it is obsequi- 
ously rustling over the odious usurper. 



^SCULAPIUS. 

It was always rather a poor palm-tree. 
What Nike misses most are her wings. 
She was excessively dejected when we 
first arrived, but Pallas very kindly 
allowed her to take care of the jewel for 
half an hour. Nike — if still hardly 
recognisable — is no longer to be taken 
for Niobe. 



The Gods in the Island 191 



Dionysus [risi/^g to his feet']. 

I shall do well, however, to go before 
she comes. 



-^SCULAPIUS. 

By no means. I should prefer your 
Staying. Nike will prefer it, too. In 
the old days she always liked you to be 
her harbinger. 

Dionysus. 

Not always; sometimes my panthers 
turned and bit her. But my panthers 
and my vines are gone to keep her laurels 
and her palm-tree company. I think I 
will not stay, ^sculapius. But what 
does Nike want with you r 

[Slozvly a?id pe?iswely descending from 
the upper woods, Nike enters.] 

Dionysus. 

I was excusing myself, Nike, to our 



192 Hypolympia : or 

learned friend here for not having paid 
my addresses to you earlier. You must 
have thought me negligent ? 

Nike. 

Oh ! Dionysus, I assure you it is not 
so. Your temperament is one of violent 
extremes — you are either sparkling with 
miraculous rapidity of apprehension, or 
you are sunken in a heavy doze. These 
have doubtless been some of your sleepy 
days. And I. ... oh ! I am very 
deeply changed. 

Dionysus. 

No, not at all. Hardly at all. [He 
scarcely glances at her, hut turns to ^scu- 
LAPius.] But farewell to both of you, 
for I am going down to the sea-board to 
watch for dolphins. That long melan- 
choly plunge of the black snout thrills 
me with pleasure. It always did, and 



The Gods in the Island 193 

the coast-line here curiously reminds me 

of Naxos. Be kind to iEsculapius, Nike. 

[He descends along the water-course j and 

exit. Nike smiles sadly ^ and 

half holds out her arms tozuards 

^sculapius.] 

Nike. 

It is for you, O brother of Hermes, to 
be kind to me. How altered we all are ! 
Dionysus is not himself ... As I came 
here, I passed below the little grey 
precipice of limestone 

^SCULAPIUS. 

Where the marchantias grow ? Yes : 

Nike. 

And three girls in white dresses, with 
wreaths of flowers on their shoulders, 
were laughing and chatting there in the 
shade of the great yew-tree. Who do 



194 Hypolympia : or 

you suppose they were, these laughing 
girls in white ? 

^SCULAPIUS. 

Perhaps three of the Oceanides, bright 
as the pure foam of the wave ? 

Nike. 

iEsculapius, they were not girls. 
They were the terrible and ancient 
Eumenides, black with the curdled blood 
of Uranus. They were the inexorable 
Furies, who were wont to fawn about my 
feet, with the adders quivering in their 
tresses, tormenting me for the spoils of 
victory. What does it mean ? Why 
are they in white ? As we came hither 
in the dreadful vessel, they were huddled 
together at the prow, and their long black 
raiment hung overboard and touched the 
brine. They were mumbling and 
crooning hate-songs, and pointing with 
skinny fingers to the portents in the sky. 



The Gods in the Island 195 

What is it that has changed their mood ? 
What is it that can have turned the 
robes of the Eumenides white, and 
enamelled their wrinkled flesh with 
youth ? 

iEsCULAPIUS. 

Is it not because a like strange meta- 
morphosis has invaded your own nature 
that you have come to meet me here ? 

Nike [after a pause\. 

I am bewildered, but I am not unhappy. 
I come because the secrets of life are 
known to you. I come because it was 
you whom Zeus sent to watch over 
Cadmus and Harmonia when their dread 
and comfortable change came over them. 
They were weary with grief and defeat, 
tired of being for ever overwhelmed by 
the ever-mounting wave of mortal fate. 
1 am weary 



196 Hypolympia : or 

^scuLAPius [s/ozvly]. 

Of what, Nike ? Be true to yourself. 
Of what are you weary ? 

Nike. 

I come to you that you may tell. I 
know no better than the snake knows 
when his skin withers and bloats. I feel 
distress, apprehension, no pain, a little 
fear. 

iEsCULAPIUS. 

You speak of Cadmus and Harmonia ; 
but is not your case the opposite of theirs ? 
They were saved from defeat ; is it not 
your unspoken hope to be saved from 
victory, saved from what was your essential 
self? 

Nike. 

Can it be so ? I find, it is true, that 
I look back upon my rush and blaze of 
battle with no real regret. What a vain 



The Gods in the Island 197 

thing it was, the perpetual clash and 
resonance of a victory that no one could 
withstand ; the mockery that conquest 
must be to an immortal whom no one 
can ever really oppose ; — no veritable 
difficulty to overcome, no genuine resist- 
ance to meet, nothing positively tussled 
with and thrown, nothing but ghostly 
armies shrinking and melting a little way 
in front of my advancing eagles ! That 
can never happen again, and even through 
the pang of losing my laurel and my 
wings, I did not genuinely deplore it. 
Nothing but the sheer intoxication of my 
immortality had kept me at the pitch. And 
now that it is gone, oh wisest of the gods, 
it is for you to tell me how, in this 
mortal state, I can remain happy and yet 
be me. 



tEsculapius. 

You are on the highroad to happiness ; 



198 Hypolympia : or 

you see its towers over the dust, for you 
dare to know yourself. 

Nike. 

Myself, ^sculapius ? 

^SCULAPIUS. 

Yes; you have that signal, that culmina- 
ting courage. 

Nike. 

But it is because I do not know my way 
that I come to you. 

^SCULAPIUS. 

To recognise the way is one thing, it 
is much; but to recognise yourself is infi- 
nitely more, and includes the way. 

Nike. 

Ah ! I see. I think I partly see. The 
element of real victory was absent where 
no defeat could be. 



The Gods in the Island 199 

j:Esculapius [eager/y]. 

Dismal, sooty, raven-coloured robes of 
the Eumenldes ! 

Nike. 

And it may be present even where no 
final conquest can ensue ? 

iEsCULAPIUS. 

Ah ! how white they grow ! How 
the serpents drop out of their tresses. 

Nike. 

lam feeling forward with my finger-tips, 
like a blind woman searching. . . . And 
the real splendour of victory may consist 
in the helpless mortal state ; may blossom 
there, while it only budded in our 
immortality ? 

iEsCULAPIUS. 

May consist, really, of the effort, the 



200 Hypolympia 

desire, the act of gathering up the will to 
make the plunge. This will be victory 
now, it will be the drawing of the bow- 
string and not the mere cessation of the 
arrow-flight. 



XII 



XII 

[The main terrace, soon after dawn. 
In the centre Zeus sits a/one, 
throned and silent. One by one 
the Gods come out of the house, and 
arrange themselves in a semicircle, 
to the left and right, each as he 
passes making obeisance toX^v^. 
It is a perfectly still morning, and 
a dense white mist hangs over the 
woods, completely hiding the sea 
and the farther shore. When all 
are seated^ 

Zeus \in a very slow voice]. 

My children, since we came here I 
have not been visited until to-night by 
even a shadow of those forebodings 
which, in the form of divine prescience. 



204 Hypolympia : or 

illuminated my plans and your fortunes 
in Olympus. [^ pause, while the gods lean 
towards him in deepest attention?^ But a 
dream came close to my pillow last night 
and whispered to me strange, disquieting 
words. ... I have no longer the art of 
clairvoyance, but I find I am not wholly 
dark. Still can I faintly divine the forms 
of the future, as we may all divine the 
roll of the woods before us, and the cleft 
which leads down to the shore, although 
this impalpable vapour shrouds our 
world. . . . And, from the dream, or 
from my faint perceptions, I am made 
aware that another mighty change is 
approaching us. 

\^A silence^ 

Heracles. 

Can you indicate to us the nature of 
this change ? \_Looking round the semicircle.'\ 
If it is permitted to us to do so we would 



The Gods in the Island 205 

repudiate it. [The gods in silence signify 
their assent.'] 

Zeus [_?iot replying to Heracles]. 

When we fled hither from the con- 
suming malignity of the traitor, it was 
communicated to me that this island on 
the very uttermost border of the world 
was left us as a home from which we 
should never be dislodged. Here we 
were to dwell in peace, and here . . . 
to grow old, and . . . die. Here, in 
the meantime, new interests, humble 
wishes, cheerful curiosities have already 
twined about us, and we have gazed 
upon Pandora's jewel, and are no more 
the same. 

Persephone. 

Are we to be driven hence still farther 
towards the confines of immensity, 
father ? 



206 Hypolympia : or 

Zeus. 

I know not. 

Kronos. 

More journeys, more weary, weary 
journeys ? 

Zeus. 

I know but what I tell you . . . that 
I foresee a change. [J silence.'] How 
breathless is the air. Not the outline of 
a leaf is shaken against the sky. 

Phgebus. 

But the mist grows thinner, and high 
up in it I see a faint blueness. 

Zeus. 

I do not — nothing but the bewildering 
woolly whiteness, that chills my eye- 
balls. . . . [With a sudden vivacity.] Ah ! 
yes ... it is the sea ! Is Poseidon 
here .? 



The Gods in the Island 207 

Poseidon. 

I went down to the shore very early 
indeed this morning, before there was an 
atom of mist in the air. I called upon 
the glassy, oily sea, and I could not but 
fancy that, although there was little 
motion in the wave, it did roll faintly to 
my foot, and fawn at me in its reply. To 
me also, father, it seemed as though my 
element was burdened with a secret 
which it knew not how to convey to 
me. 
[J silence.l 

Aphrodite [aside to Pallas]. 

If we must be driven forth again, let 
us at least cling to such new gifts as we 
have secured here. 

Pallas [in an eager zvhisper\ 

I should like to know what you con- 
sider them to be. Do you hold intro- 
spection as one of them ? 



208 Hypolympia : or 

Aphrodite. 

I certainly do. The analysis of one's 
own feelings, and the sense of watching 
the fluctuating symptoms of one's in- 
dividuality, form one of the principal 
consolations of our mortal state. 



Pallas. 

I think I should give it another name. 

Hermes [who has come up behind them, and 
bending forward has overheard the con- 
versation']. 

My name for it would be the indulgence 
of personal vanity. 

Aphrodite [speaks louder, while the conver- 
sation becomes general, except that Zeus 
takes no part in it]. 

You may call it so, if you please, but it 
is a source of genuine pleasure to us. 



The Gods in the Island 209 



Phcebus. 

Ignorance is doubtless another of these 
consolations — ignorance chemically modi- 
fied by a few drops of the desire for know- 
ledge. . . . {^Enthusiastically?^ And all 
the chastened forms of recollection, how 
delightful they are, and how they add to 
our satisfaction here ! 

Nike. 

It would be interesting to me to 
understand what you mean by chastened 
forms of recollection. I don't think that 
is my experience. 

Pallas. 

I conceive memory as a pure, un- 
biased emotion, an image of past life 
cast upon an unflawed mirror. Why do 
you say " chastened " ? 

Phcebus. 

That memory which is nothing but a 



210 Hypolympia : or 

plain reproduction on the mirror of the 
mind is a tame concern, Pallas. It 
transfers, without modification, all that 
is dull, and squalid, and unessential. The 
only memory which is worthy of those 
who have tasted immortality is that 
which has in some degree been fortified. 
To recollect with enjoyment is to select 
certain salient facts from an experience 
and to be oblivious of the rest ; or else it 
is to heighten the exciting elements of 
an event outof all proportion with historic 
fact ; or it even is to place what should be 
in the seat of what precisely was. . . . 
But this must be done firmly, logically, 
with no timidity in reminiscence, so that 
the mind shall rest in a perfectly artistic 
conviction that what it recollects is all 
the truth and nothing but the truth. 
This is chastened, or, if you prefer it, 
civilised memory. But Zeus is about to 
speak. 

[The Gods resume their seats in silence. 



The Gods in the Island 211 

Zeus rises from his throne, and 
the Gods perceive that the mist has 
710W almost entirely evaporated 
around them, and that the entire 
scene is luminous with morning 
radiance. All the Gods leanfor- 
zvard to gaze on Zeus, who gazes 
over and beyond them to the sea.] 

Zeus. 

The whole bay heaves in one vast 
wave of unbroken pearl. . . . And in 
the east something flashes . . . some- 
thing moves . . . approaches. 

[Jll the Gods, except Kronos and 
Rhea, rise and follow with their 
gaze the extended hand of Zeus. 
Poseidon steps forviard to the 
front of the scene and shouts.] 

Poseidon. 

See ! Three huge white ships are 
coming out of the east, and the waves 



212 Hypolympia : or 

glide away at their wake in widening 
glassy hues. How they speed ! How 
they speed, without oar or sail ! 

Kronos. 

No rest, no sleep for us. Leave us 
here behind you, Zeus. We never have 
any rest. 

Rhea. 

Yes; do not drag us farther in the 
wearisome train of your misfortunes. 

Zeus [benignly, turning to them.'] 

Be not afraid, Rhea and Kronos. But 
we must not abandon you. For the old 
sakes' sake we will hold together to the 
end. 

Ares. 

Shall we not collect our forces in 
unison, mortal as they are, and die together 
in resisting this invasion ? 



The Gods in the Island 213 

Dionysus. 

The kind barbarians are with us. 
They will fight at our side. 

Hephaestus. 

Yes, let us fight and die. 

Zeus. 

You have no forces to collect, my sons. 
We cannot take toll of the blood of the 
barbarians. We cannot resist, we can 
but submit and withdraw. . . . The 
ships fleet closer. They are like monstrous 
fishes of living silver. I confess this is 
not what I anticipated. This is not what 
my faint dream seemed to indicate. 
What inspires the implacable destroyer 
to pursue us, and with this imposing and 
miraculous navy, to the shore of that 
harmless exile in which we were endeavour- 
ing to forget his existence, 1 know not. 
But let us at least preserve that dignity 



214 Hypolympia : or 

which has survived our deity. Whatever 
may be now in store for us — if the worst 
of all things be now hurrying to complete 
our annihilation — let us meet it with 
simplicity. Let us meet it with an even 
mind. 

Circe. 

Oh, see ! what are those filaments of 
blue and violet and grassy green which 
flutter in the cordage of the three ships ? 

Phcebus. 

They leap forward, though no wind is 
blowing. 

Circe. 

They are arranged in order, and they 
bend upwards and now outwards. 

Hera. 

The colours of them are those which 
adorn my bird. 



The Gods in the Island 215 

Pallas. 

Ah! wonder of wonders ! These have 
joined one another, see, and now they 
shoot forward together in a vibrating 
ribband of delicious lustre, and now it is 
arched to our shore, and descends at the 
lowest of these our woodland stairs. 

Zeus. 

A vast rainbow from the three white 
vessels to this island ! . . . And behold, 
a figure steps from it. She is robed to 
the feet in palest watchet blue, and her 
face is like a rosy star, and she waves her 
violet wings in the incommunicable speed 
of her ascent. My children, it is Iris, 
our lost daughter, our ineffable messenger. 
Let us await in silence the tidings which 
she brings. 

[Zeus seats hifnself, and the Gods take 
their places as before. The air is 
now translucent, the sky cloudless. 



216 Hypolympia : or 

while the heechwoods fiash with 
the lustre of dew, a?id the sea 
beyond the white ships is like a 
floor of turquoise. Iris is seen to 
rise from the shore, through the 
gorge i?i the woods. She ap- 
proaches, half flying, half climb- 
ing, with incredible velocity. She 
appears, in her splendour, at the 
top of the stairs, and looks round 
upon the Gods. Without excep- 
tion, in the magniflcence of her 
presence they look grey and old 
and dim. She hesitates a moment, 
and then kneels before the throne 
of Zevs.] 



Iris. 

Father and lawgiver ! Imperial Master 
of Heaven ! The rebellion in Olympus 
is over. The usurper has fallen under 
the weight of hi^ own presumption, 



The Gods in the Island 217 

lower than the lowest chasms of Hades, 
chained Tor all eternity by the fetters of 
his own insolence and madness. It is 
not needful for you, Zeus, to punish or 
to be clement. Under the inevitable 
rebound of his impious frenzy, himself 
has sealed his doom for ever and ever. 
It is now for the Father of Heaven, and 
these his children, to resume their im- 
mortality and to regain their incompar- 
able abodes. Be it my reward for the 
joyous labour of bringing the good news, 
to be the first to kiss these awful and 
eternal feet. 

[Iris Jiings herself before 7.YXi% in 
adoratioUy and folds her wings 
about her face. As she touches 
him, his deity blazes forth from 
him. When Iris rises again, she 
glances round at the Gods with 
gratified astonishment, for all of 
them have become brilliant and 
young.] 

p 



218 Hypolympia : or 

Zeus. 

Lea4 the way, Iris. This is no longer 
a place for us. Lead on and we will 
follow. Lead on, that we may resume 
our immortality. 

[Iris Jiies down to the sea, and Zeus 
descends the steps. He is followed 
by all the other deities.'] 

Circe. 

Were we really happy among these 
trees? I can scarcely credit it, they 
seem so common and so frail. 

Nike. 

Ha, my palm and my laurel and my 
■wings. How can I have breathed with- 
out them for an hour ? 

Aphrodite [to Eros]. 

Shall we recollect this little episode 
when we walk up the golden street 
presently to our houses ? 



The Gods in the Island 219 

Eros. 

I cannot think so, mother. That 
refinement of memory of which Phoebus 
was speaking will seem the most ridicu- 
lous of illusions there. 

Phoebus. 

Yes ; to cultivate illusion, to live in the 
past, to resuscitate experience, may be 
the amusements of mortality, but they 
mean nothing now to us. When Selene 
re-enters her orb, she will not disquiet 
herself about the disorders of its inter- 
regnum. 

Pallas [hastily reascendmg\. 

I have left Pandora's jewel behind me, 
I must fetch it. 

Hermes [the last to descend]. 

Let me confess that I took it from 
you. One of the barbarians was weeping. 



220 Hypolympia 

and I wished, I cannot tell why, to see 
her smile. I gave your jewel to her. 

Pallas. 

It is of no moment. It would be an 
inconspicuous ornament in that blaze of 
the heart's beauty to which the white 
ships are about to carry us. 

Hermes. 

Come, then, Pallas, and let us linger 
here no more. 

[Thy descend and disappear ?[ 



THE END. 



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